It’s been a little while since I posted a week in smoke. With all the travel and video editing, I really got into the moving picture groove. But today, I feel like talking with my fingers. Before you get that restraining order, I mean by way of typing and some quick picture editing. Good thing too, the smoking notes have been piling up.

Now that we’ve established that there’s no need to involve the police… It’s once time again for another issue of Brian’s The Week In Smoke. In case this is your first Week in Smoke, be advised that it covers many (though not necessarily all) of the cigars I’ve smoked in the past week (or the past month, or however long it has been since the last issue), along with a couple of quick thoughts that came to me at the time. These are not full cigar reviews, but quick blurbs based on a single smoking experience. As such, they may be influenced by the natural variations that occur from one cigar to another. Your mileage may vary. (If I know the cigar well enough to comment, I may mention if an experience strays from what understand to be the norm.)

An appearance in The Week in Smoke does not preclude nor guarantee a future in-depth review. Whenever possible, I’ve linked to more a thoughtful and thorough review of the cigar in question. (Or maybe I’ve linked to a photo of Jerry The ‘Stache. You won’t know until you click.) Enjoy!

Avo Mystery Note 326
One of the interesting cigars I lit up over the past few weeks was the Avo Mystery Note 326. It’s generally found in the Avo Quartet 2015 four pack, but I’ve seen it for sale separately a few places. There’s not a lot of information available about this cigar, and that seems to be the point. It is called the Mystery Note, after all. One thing is clear, it’s a good smoke. The one I lit up was sweet and creamy, with notes of vanilla, grass and cedar. I don’t know if there are plans for it to have a life after the Quartet pack, but it’d be nice to see it as a full production line.

Bentley Corona *
I didn’t pick up many sample cigars at InterTabac 2015, one of the few I did was this Bentley Corona. Bentley (the cigar company) was located in a long open booth with CLE and Patoro and just happened to be starting a media presentation with Juan Martínez of Joya de Nicaragua as we walked up. No surprise, the cigar had a Joya-ness to it, earthy and leathery but very toned down when compared to a cigar like the Antaño 1970. It also had some nutty, herbal and sweeter raisin-flavors. It was was a solid smoke, but my favorite thing I was introduced to in the booth was Bentley’s double barrel-aged rum named B13. That said, I’d smoke it again.

Crux Du Connoisseur Lancero *
Who doesn’t love a good lancero? (Don’t answer that, I want to go on pretending the answer is “no one”.) I certainly do, and I was pleased to see these arrive in the mail recently. I lit one up the same evening, hoping the trip wasn’t too hard on the sticks. It didn’t seem to be. The cigar burned well and produced flavors in the earthy-leathery range with some creaminess, spices and peppery black tobacco. A good smoke right off the truck, but I plan to give the other samples a little time to get comfortable in their new environment before lighting them up.

Romeo y Julieta Exclusivo Para TAA By José Seijas
This one is another one of those mystery sticks. I found it in one of my humidors, and had no idea where it came from. Presumably a TAA member cigar shop, but 6×60’s are ordinarily something I shy away from, even if they’re box pressed. (On the subject, there’s a missed opportunity here- a flatter press would have made this a far more comfortable smoke.) So after carrying it around for a while in my travel humidor, I lit it up this week. And it was more or less what I expected. Earth, cocoa and some sweeter notes that ranged from raisins to caramel with the occasional mildly sour note. Toward the end the wrapper on the cigar split from swelling and it seemed to burn hot. On the whole, it wasn’t bad, but both the cigar and I were ready to call it quits shortly after the band was off.

Warped Futuro Selección Suprema
I spent a lot of time on the road last month, and whenever I could, I stopped in at local cigar shops. In one place I stopped I spotted an assortment of Warped Cigars, including this collaboration with Casa Fernandez. I picked up several different lines, but the first I lit up was this Futuro. The minute the flame touched the foot, spiciness erupted from the cigar, but after a short time it gave way to flavors like caramel, pepper, raisins, nuts, leather and sweet orange. At points the smoke seemed to have a slight clay or waxy quality to it terms of mouth feel. It was a pretty impressive cigar.

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* Big Brother would have you know these cigars were gifts or free samples, and that my opinions on them is suspect. My opinions (and a hole in liquor cabinet that can only be filled by a 2015 bottle of George T. Stagg) are my own, your response to them is your own. All your base are belong to us.

** I have too many smokes, and this denotes that the smoke in question has been sitting in one of my humidors for at least a year, and thus qualifies as “aged”. If my collection continues to grow, the chances are good I’ll be on that Discovery Channel show about people who hoard stuff and face eviction.

Some of the pictures in Brian’s The Week In Smoke first appeared on twitter or instagram. If you’d like to see these lists constructed in real time, follow Brian on twitter or instagram. If you don’t, you’ll make the Fail Whale cry. And he’s ugly when he cries.