Reading about the fermentation process that takes place in Cuba makes me realize how precise the process must be in order to achieve the wonderful flavors that the Cohiba end up with in their cigars.  The temperature is consistent and monitored so that the leaves do NOT get too hot in their bales as the chemical process takes place changing the tobacco into something special.  Bales are taken apart, sometimes up to 10 times, if they get too warm so they do not get mouldy. That would destroy so many people’s efforts and be too costly.

In the production of the Maduro 5 Series of Cohiba cigars, we are talking about 5 years of fermentation and all of the things that can go wrong in that amount of time is staggering.  What finally results are tobacco leaves that are perfect for the blending and rolling of those beautiful dark chocolate colored cigars.  The sweetness that these cigars have is really quite something and have to be sampled to be believed. The extra time taken to produce the Maduro 5 has been a great success for Cohiba and the extra effort has paid off.

Day 2 and after a not so relaxing night in an affordable roadside motel 10 hours from home I thought I’d continue on and drive the rest of the way to Lethbridge, Alberta.  Problem is, I shouldn’t have waged war on the red-neck party animals who were up all night a few motel room doors down from me at 3:00 AM.  A part of me knew that maybe all I needed to do was to put in some ear-plugs, roll over and go back to sleep when they started a late night football game in the parking lot below my room.  Another part of me knew that it would have been better to stay in my room and keep to myself rather than go down to the group of yahoos and tell them that they were acting like idiots, keeping all kinds of people from sleeping and that if they didn’t shut up immediately they’d regret ever being born.  You’d think I’d have known better after seeing the majority of them walking around holding on to bottles of every kind of hard liquor imaginable mixed with the sounds of country and western music blaring from one of their pick-up trucks idling in the parking lot.

You’d think I’d have had a bit of common sense…………………. You’d think……………….

Nope!!!!!!!

I told them if they touched or harmed my car( Pointing to my Car) in any way, I’d have the lot of them thrown in jail.  I marched back to my room, slammed the door and thought that I had made my point in a crystal clear manner.  Things quietened down after that and I felt victorious but got a bit nervous when I heard voices whispering and quietly laughing now and then just outside my door.  I somehow got back to sleep….

Next morning the parking lot looked like a ghost town and the only vehicle left was my car but it looked very very different from the last time I saw it.  The tires were removed and the vehicle had been jacked up and put on blocks…. Big blocks…… High blocks……. The car was about 7 feet off the ground sitting on, what appeared to be, 2 foot length pieces of railroad ties all stacked up like Leggo blocks.. It almost looked like a crane would have been needed to lift my car that high….. Plus……. My tires and rims were tied to the handles of the car’s doors and hanging by 4 feet of rope.

These were very smart practical jokers I ran into and I have no idea how the police and tow truck people were able to get my car off of the stilts without hurting it but all was in order after I walked 2 blocks back to the motel after breakfast. The police said that they had actually heard of this very same problem 2 days before at one of the neighboring towns.  Seems like there was a group of engineer students terrorizing the country after a “Big and Rich” concert was cancelled in Calgary and some very strange pranks had been pulled.

I gassed up, had 6 hours to go and lit up a Cohiba Magicos on my way out of town.  Something told me that not just any cigar would do so I lit up something very special.  The 5 year aged maduro wrapper had a calming effect on me as I held this cigar during the first third.  I think it was the rich chocolate flavors this cigar has to offer had me pacified and allowed the next hour and a half to smoothly pass by. These are a real victory of cigar blending and rolling and I felt that this little Magicos saved my morning.

A few days back I got a call in the morning to go hit a few balls at the driving range.  The weather wasn’t bad but it was too rainy to golf and a buddy was going to invite a friend of his, a golf pro at one of the local courses, to join up with us.  Great!!!  I had heard so much about this guy and finally was going to meet him and maybe get a few pointers on my swing.  I had recently gotten a new Ping G10 Driver and couldn’t wait to hit a few more balls with it plus you can smoke cigars at this particular range which is one of the main reasons why I’ll drive a bit farther to get there. This was shaping up to be a fine morning.

I had lots of gas in the car, clubs in the back and Miles Davis in the CD player.  The traffic wasn’t too bad at that time of day, the morning rush had slowed down and so I decided to stop in to pick up a cappuccino, I had more than enough time to get there.  I got back out on to the highway, cranked up the tunes and then felt a bit of a shudder.  What???? Wadda ya mean shudder??  Cars aren’t supposed to shudder !!  $$$$$$$  The car rolled to a stop.   Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! $$$$$$$$$$

I managed to get to the side of the road, turn on the emergency flashers and poke around under the hood to see if anything wrong was kind of obvious.  No, nothing jumped out at me so I then looked under the car and saw nothing there either.  good grief!!!!  About 3 minutes a cop pulls up behind me, turns on the lights and walks up to my window.  Well, he was a friendly enough guy but said that I couldn’t stay there and called a tow truck.  $$$$$$$$$……  The tow truck guy towed my car a few miles down the road to my son in law’s garage and then a whole other story begins. $$$$$$$$

I wasn’t going to get any golf tips today.  I wasn’t going to sit peacefully at the driving range smoking a cigar and drinking the rest of my cappuccino.  Good grief!!!  I had to think of something !!  Well at least there was a CD player in the garage and a comfortable chair.  I pulled out Cohiba Genios Maduro 5.  I love the beautiful maduro wrapper this cigar has, the color, the slightly oily texture and after clipping the cap I found an easy draw.  The cigar started off with that peppery Cohiba taste and settled down and became more spicy.

I found myself becoming more relaxed and getting used to the idea that I’d be getting to know my new driver at a later date at the range.  Oh well……. Hey, do any of you know what a timing belt is??   $$$$$$$$$$$$$

The Vancouver Cigar Company has produced a straight forward (and more importantly free) e-book called Cohiba 101 (Cohiba 101 Download).  I downloaded it tonight and gave it a bit of a look over and was surprised about two things: #1) It was relatively pitch free (just good information) #2) I learned a couple of things about the Cohiba.  Also it seems that they actually used some of my reviews that I sent them (Bonus!).

This 101 e-book thing would have been great when I first started smoking cigars.

Cohiba Cigar Blog Entry By Shane

Another great stogie.  The Cohiba Maduro Piramides are similar in taste to the Genios.  The smaller ring gauge makes it a little more of a tight draw.  With that said the Piramide also seemed to be a bit smoother, some of the more subtle flavors in the cigar seemed to have been more evident than in the larger Cohiba Maduro.

I got them from a shop other than my regular hang-out and they were a little less humidified than I prefer.  I have laid down a couple in my humidor for a couple of weeks and will let you know how those smoke at that time.  Overall this is a great 35-40 minute smoke.  It is smooth, subtly spicy yet a bit stronger than some of the other Cohiba’s.

As a side note I noticed that there are some great deals on boxes of Cohiba Robustos and Cohiba Esplendidos ($450.00) online at Vancouver Cigar… I have verified the authenticity with a visit to their storehouse last week.

A month ago I arrived back from Cuba with a fresh box of Cohiba Maduros 5 – Genios. I swore I would lay the box down for another year or so put the box sort of taunted me each time I opened up my humidor locker.

I picked them up at the Partagas Factory. On my tour of the factory I watched one of the rollers make a Genios. The leaf looked extra dark. I assumed because it was from higher up in the plant. I was then corrected, the leaf is from further up the plant but that’s just the start.

This Cohiba leaf has also been aged 5 years minimum before it is made into a cigar. In addition to this unlike many other maduros the wrapper isn’t the only part of the cigar that is aged. Cohiba has elected to use several aged leaves along with the standard Cohiba tobacco.

A lot of these boxes have already been laid down for a couple years so the thought of leaving my box any longer didn’t seem to make any sense. I GLAD I BROKE THE SEAL. Needless to say this is now favorite Cohiba (next to the Sublime of course). I do of course reserve the right to change my mind at a later date.

The construction is amazing (I know because I have now smoked 8 this month). The draw is perfect, not too tight but wrapped well enough to control the burn. The flavor is surprisingly smooth yet the cigar is strong like a vintage 1980’s era Cuban cigar I once smoked.