I’m posting this long after I finished the cigar. The experience was so good that I had to sit a while and marvel at what I had just smoked.
Some cigars defy being analyzed.
I’m smoking the 2010 Don Cervantes Masterpiece Platinum this morning, and it has everything I love about cigars. It’s floral and creamy, smooth as silk, with a gorgeous tropical fruit finish. But alongside all that elegance is enormous power. Some cigars can sometimes feel soft and drifting. This one has a presence that’s impossible to miss.
I wrote the paragraph above as an opener to writing a review. But as I smoked, taking the experience apart began to feel like the wrong thing to do. I could describe the flavors, examine the structure, and consider how everything worked together. Yet the prospect of doing that felt like it would diminish the incredible experience the cigar was offering me.
It was almost as if the cigar would be offended. “You REALLY want to take my experience apart? I’m too good for that. Just smoke me.”
And here I am, writing about why I can’t write a review.
The feeling is hard to explain. But some cigars stop my day and keep me from focusing on anything but the smoke.
This is one of those day-stoppers.
Here’s what I’m experiencing: I feel like I’m walking through a field of wildflowers, sipping a potent and sweet Tiki drink. The cigar has put me into a dream state. I’m enveloped by its goodness, unable and, frankly, unwilling to tear myself away from its embrace.
It reminds me of Star Trek: Generations, in which Malcolm McDowell plays Dr. Tolian Soran, a scientist obsessed with returning to a mysterious phenomenon called the Nexus. It’s a realm outside normal space and time where your deepest desires become reality, and you can remain indefinitely. You can leave through an act of will, but the overwhelming happiness makes leaving extraordinarily difficult.
I’m in the Nexus with this cigar.
I’m not saying it’s perfect. But this feels like a perfect moment in time, where everything slows down, I can see things with incredible clarity, and nothing seems to matter but the moment I’m experiencing.
I’m chuckling because that brings another movie to mind: Star Trek: Insurrection.
But movie nostalgia aside, I feel that doing a deep analysis of the flavor profile and movement would be a disservice to the experience. In this case, it takes precedence over analysis.
And to be honest, even writing about the experience seems a little wrong. But I had to share it, because moments like these don’t come around very often.
I’m going to shut up now.
In the aftermath of smoking this cigar, that experience was a reminder that the most important thing is to simply Cut. Light. Enjoy. As a reviewer, and as an engineer by trade, that is sometimes very difficult for me to do.
I look at a new cigar, and I want to put it under the microscope of my evaluation framework. But in this case, the cigar dictated that the only pillar in my framework that mattered was Resonance: the emotional effect the cigar had on me. All the other pillars were irrelevant.
Yes, the cigar was incredibly structured and refined. It had identity, intent, energy, and architecture. But while I smoked it, none of that mattered. And to be honest, none of those things should matter.
I developed my framework to help me understand and communicate what I experience when I smoke a cigar. And after using it for so many reviews, evaluating has become almost automatic. I notice something, and I want to understand it. Why does this work? How does it fit with everything else? What is the blender doing here?
This morning, I was happy to leave those questions unanswered. Whatever the reasons, the cigar had completely absorbed my attention. I could spend time afterward considering how it accomplished that, but while I was smoking, I wanted to stay right where I was.
For someone with my habits, that’s worth remembering. I can enjoy a cigar without turning that enjoyment into something I need to explain. The experience is complete even if I never write a review, assign a score, or understand precisely why it affected me so deeply.
Cut. Light. Enjoy.
Sometimes I need a reminder to let myself get to that last part.
As for rating the cigar, even that would be a disservice to the experience because it broke through my framework. I don’t have a number for being so completely absorbed that I wanted nothing more than to remain in that moment. The fact that I was still sitting there marveling after the cigar was finished says everything I want to say about how much I enjoyed it.
The only place I know who carries this is Bay Briar Shoppe in Soquel, CA. They carry a number of Don Cervantes lines. I only live 45 minutes away, so it’s not that big of a stretch for me to make a trip out there. But for others, I reached out to ACC to see if there were other retailers in my area and they simply told me to give Bay Briar a call and they’d ship the cigars. Their number is: +1-831-475-1751.
Side note: I shared the review with ACC and they had some corrections. The cigar is made in Ecuador. The blend stats are as follows:
Wrapper: Ecuadoran Sumatra Tier 4
Binder: Ecuadoran Sumatra Tier 3
Filler #1: Peruvian Pelo De Oro Tier 2
Filler #2: Pelo De Oro Ligero
Filler #3: Wild grown Ecuadoran Santa Lucia which grows in the swamps of Ecuador.
The leaf is harvested and aged in Ecuador, and rolled in Ecuador.
Sorry, the provenance I assigned was based what information I could gather on ACC and Don Cervantes. I’m glad I shared it with them so they could set the record straight.
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