Wrapper: Habano Maduro / Ecuador
Binder: Criollo ’98 / Nicaragua
Filler: Viso and Double Ligero / Nicaragua
Size: Toro (6 × 56)
Strength: Medium → just shy of Medium-Plus (at the end)
Body: Medium-Plus → Full (after halfway)
Price: $6.00 per single at Miami Humidor
Factory: Las Villas Cigars, Estelí, Nicaragua
Blender: Guillermo Peña
Release: 2012 IPCPR (Regular Production)
Smoking Time: 1:55
Experience Rating: 100
I don’t play favorites when it comes to Paul Stulac cigars. I’ve got most of his cigars in my humidor. How could I not? I love every one of them.
But this one is special.
There’s always been something about this particular blend that makes me set it aside for when I can take my time with it. That’s different from saving it for a special occasion. When I smoke a White Blinding Light, I want to focus entirely on it.
Those times don’t come around often, so I rarely have to re-up on my WBL sticks. In fact, the stick I’m smoking came from a 25-pack I bought in May 2025. When I saw it this morning, I realized I hadn’t smoked one in a couple of months and hadn’t given an update since my August 2025 review.
So let’s see what it’s like with almost a year and a half of age.
The first thing I notice when I unwrap the cigar is how oily the skin is. It feels like super-fine sandpaper, and up close I can see tiny bumps of tooth dotting the wrapper.
Some areas look a little oilier than others. I smell one of those spots and get a gorgeous, sweet floral scent and an aroma I can only describe as sandalwood. The rest of the wrapper smells of rich tobacco with a hint of barnyard, while the foot is fruity, bready, and slightly woody. Nice.
I clip the cap. The draw is picture-perfect, easy with just a bit of resistance. I get dried wood, hay, and sweetgrass.
Just as I light the cigar and take the first puff, my son calls, so I get a bit distracted at the start. But here’s the rundown. The profile starts dark, with cacao beans, black coffee, burnt cedar, dark molasses, and a touch of black pepper. The first thing that always hits me when I light one up is that this is a grown-up cigar.
If you’re new to cigars and already like black coffee and dark chocolate, there’s plenty here to appreciate. Even so, the force of that darkness can be overwhelming for the uninitiated. This is one that, if I’m feeling generous enough to share (which I’m likely not to be with this cigar), I’d only give to someone with an experienced palate.
Amazingly, the strength is an agreeable medium, with a medium-plus body. Last year, the nicotine hit hard right from the start. I feel only a little of it now. The potentially overwhelming power comes through in the profile’s rich darkness.
But I can feel a change coming.
An inch in, and a wave of complexity washes over me. I feel like a surfer who just got worked, caught on the inside with another set approaching. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and allspice, stone fruit, tropical fruit, black bread with caraway, green peppercorn, cardamom. Might as well throw in the kitchen sink. I can kind of make out other things, but I’m still being worked. My main focus is to find “up” and get some air.
My head breaks the surface, and I notice the spice on my tongue. It’s like finding my board amid the chaos. I’ve got something to hold onto so I don’t get sucked down again.
And the onslaught doesn’t stop. More waves approach. Now that I know what to expect, I can duck dive under them and observe them instead of getting tumbled.
I hit the halfway point, and I’m on my board on the outside. The water is much flatter outside the break. I’m having a Zen moment. I bob in the water, calm and in harmony with the universe, waiting for a set. To be honest, I feel more than a sense of relief.
I wasn’t expecting this much energy after more than a year of age. Power? Sure. But power combined with this much expressiveness? That catches me completely off guard.
I laugh because I realize the imagery I just shared borders on the ridiculous. But that’s what it feels like. And no, I’m not a surfer. I tried it a few times and never could get the hang of it. I’ve been caught on the inside, and I learned how to get to the outside. By then, I knew surfing wasn’t for me. I love watching the sport and appreciate the strength and skill of the top male and female surfers. I’ll stick to admiring it from a distance.
In the calm, the profile’s structure comes into focus. Rich dark chocolate leads a gorgeous core of espresso, burnt cedar, and black pepper. Chocolate was the central theme in my original review. It still is over a year later, but it feels more integrated with the rest of the core.
Sitting outside the break, I’m aware of what’s in the waves behind me. The flavors are like kelp and seaweed, like bits of flotsam and jetsam washing onto the shore. There’s plenty there, and I’m content to watch from a safe distance.
That secondary layer brings a brightness that contrasts beautifully with the dark core. The two don’t fight each other. The core is me on my board watching the surf. We’re all in the water and just going with the flow.
As I hit the final third, I realize I could’ve gone with a metaphor that fits the cigar’s name better. That wave of complexity that worked me could just as easily have been a white blinding light that left me unable to see and wondering what had just hit me. But I’ll stick with the surfing metaphor because I like it.
As I get to the final inch, the core asserts itself, its flavors intensifying without compressing. The spice moves to my lips, and they tingle. I feel an incredible urge to move forward, like I’m about to catch an approaching swell.
I catch the wave. I’m tubular, dude!
Everything is in stark relief as my board cuts inside the barrel. The flavors wash over me. I get spit out the end of the tube in a mist of roasted nuts, fresh-cut cedar, pineapple, toffee, burnt sugar, malt, and nougat. The complexity at this stage is awe-inspiring.
I ride the wave to the shore.
And what a ride it has been! In the aftermath, my mouth tastes like I just ate some strong, 72% cacao dark chocolate. It’s deep, dark, rich, and slightly, but pleasingly, bitter. I sit on the sand and admire the amazing break I just rode.
A year and a half of aging has turned this into a complete experience. Where my original review captured a couple of different scenarios, this experience was contiguous from end to end. All the tobaccos have integrated into a single experience filled with amazing, flowing energy.
As for strength, it finally hit just shy of medium-plus at the end, but stayed moderate for most of the smoke, a stark change from the force of the cigar from last year. The body built to full after the halfway point and stayed thick and luxurious to the end.
Has it gotten better? You bet your ass it has!
My rating might suggest perfection. But what it really reflects is the totality of the experience and how the cigar fulfilled every pillar of my framework, especially in how it resonated with me.
Many cigars that I’ve smoked evoke metaphors, but they usually shift. My review from last year drew from a couple of different ones. But this one was different. The surfing metaphor held through every shift in the cigar, from getting worked on the inside to riding the wave to shore.
Sure, it’s my imagination at work. But the fact that this cigar had the structure, presence, and composure to maintain my focus on that single metaphor drove Resonance through the roof. All things considered, there’s no way I could score it any lower.
While Paul Stulac cigars are available at various retailers, there’s no better place to buy them than at Miami Humidor. Sure, you could remain faithful to your favorite retailer(s), but $6/stick vs $10+/stick cannot be ignored. Plus, Mikey at MH is great to work with!
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