Today I’m doing the God of Fire 2006 Carlito Blend (tubo)
This cigar is the brain child of Keith Park (Prometheus accessories). Park teamed with Carlito Fuente to develop the limited edition cigar along with Carlos Jr. The cigar is produced in 2 Blends, the Carlito (Cameroon Wrapper), and the Don Carlos (Sun Grown Habano). The cigars carry 2 bands. The main band depicts Prometheus tied to a boulder being pecked at by an eagle (as per the Greek Myth). The band is wonderfully colored and is easily one of the nicest looking bands on the market today. The second band denotes the blender (in this case Carlito), and the year that the cigar was produced (rolled).

Cigar Stats:

Wrapper: Cameroon
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican
Year Rolled: 2006
Size: Double Robusto (5.7×52)
Price: $22
Drinking: Sweet Tea and Water

First Impressions
The wrapper is dark and toothy, a little veiny but I don’t expect any problems with them. There are a couple sun spots on the wrapper, which is a little surprising to me, but again, shouldn’t be much of an issue as far as smoking goes. The cigar is very tightly packed, very little give at all when given a squeeze. The foot has a very very sweet aroma, like chocolate and honey, or better yet, devils food cake. The cold draw is pure honey… the cap seems to taste slightly sweet, and the herbal sweetness from the cold pull leaves little room for me to think anything other than Clove Honey.
The first puffs have a nice earthy character, with a nice dry feeling on the palate. The smoke is very smooth, with a slight hint of coffee. Through the sinuses is fairly easy with little spice, and adds a nutty dimension to the other flavors.

1/3 (30min)
The body has mellowed out slightly, to a definite medium. Flavors of earth and nuts are still prominent, and retrohaling adds a bit of cinnamon. The finish is clean, leaving a feeling that you just took a swig of spring water. The burn is a bit wavy, but hasn’t required any touchups, just a little turning in the ashtray. The ash however is a little flakey, which is slightly disappointing, but seems to be holding strong. The main impression I get from this cigar is that it is unbelievably smooth. The flavors are very present, tho not bombarding the palate.

2/3 (1hr):
Things pick up a little into this third. There is now a little bit of spice coming in on the back of the tongue. The flavors are fairly consistent, with a couple new additions. There is now a slight woodiness, and some of the cold pull honey flavor and aroma is popping in every now and then. One thing I forgot to mention in the 1/3 is that the aroma of this cigar is intoxicating. Its a wonderful mixture of sweet caramel scents mixed with what I would call the savory “cigar” aroma.
The ash is still quite flakey, but the flakes are limited to just the wrapper ash. The ash overall is fairly strong, holding on for around an inch at a time, tho has a much more attractive stacking appearance in the 2/3. The finish is a more coating finish now. That is to say that it feels like the smoke and flavors hang around a bit longer than the freshly washed feeling in the 1/3. The cigars is still exceptionally smooth, and produces a great amount of thick smoke… perfect for practicing the smoke rings.

Last Bit (1.5hr)
The body picks up just a little more going into the last leg of the cigar. Again the flavors are pretty consistent, with some more additions. I could swear I picked up some coconut a couple times, and occasional fruit that I wasn’t able to pin down. The spice on the palate picked up as well, moving from the back of the palate to the front of the tongue. This in turn affected the “smoothness” of the cigar, but its not a bad change, it merely added another dimension to the stick.

Final Thoughts:
The God of Fire Carlito Double Robusto (2006), was a very fine cigar. The overriding quality of this stick is its smooth character (undoubtedly due to its age). I have only had one other cigar that I can honestly say was “smoother”, and that was a 5 year old Maduro Power Ranger. Remember that this cigar has been essentially aging for 2 1/2 years, so it will probably smooth out even more. The first third was a little disappointing in that the flavors and aromas I picked up on the cold draw weren’t present to start, and the amount of flavors present was not as much as I would have liked. Tho as the cigar progressed so did the flavors, building on each other until the end, maintaining (for the most part) its silky smooth palate feel. For the first 3rd, the body was pretty much in the medium range (leaning towards mild), but by the end of the stick it managed to work its way to the Med-Full range.

Now… As far as price goes.. this thing is a whopper, averaging $22/stick. Is it worth the money? For me, not on a regular basis. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a “Wow” cigar for me. I think… however… that some smokers out there with super fine tuned palates could go nuts over this cigar, but for the average joe (me), the price is quite prohibitive for what I got out of it.

Liked it: Yep, beginning was a little lame, but it progressed into a very nice complex cigar.
Buy it again: Not likely.
Recommend it: Sure, to the well versed palates out there, but not really to beginners, they are less likely to get their money’s worth.