The Great Wrapper Experiment

Here's where you can git yer learnin' on...maybe some rolling instruction from our resident torcedors, leafy lessons from Craig, or recommendations from the rest of us....
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Stewmuse
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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by Stewmuse » Mon Jan 04, 2016 4:06 pm

Kip wrote:I put up an announcement for those who aren't using Tapatalk. Who all is in on this, and I'll begin hounding the crap out of them until the results are in.....
Craig (i know he's smoked them, we just need his notes)
Ian
Zed

Ian and Adam have smoked a couple, but I don't know if they finished, or have put up notes about the wrapper's effects.
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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by kurtdesign1 » Tue Jan 05, 2016 8:32 am

Yes, yes. This is done for me. Mike and I met on Saturday mornign and smoked these testers. I was surprised by how much personality each wrapper brought to the table. Some were more akin to a bit of salt on something and some were like smothering it in gravy, coating in cheese and then going to the fridge and getting an altogether different meal. I've done this type of tasting once in the past and had similar surprising results. Frankly, I realized how much I enjoy two leaves that are often used OUTSIDE of their wheelhouse. Check it out.

Forum Leaf Tasting

Binder Cigar-- no wrapper. Beautiful draw and appearance for a binder only cigar. Perfect resistance. These are the components of each cigar's innards: Colombian Seco, Indonesian Sumatra and (one final leaf I forgot to write down. Mike??? Maybe Dominican Binder???)

Sweet initially, sweet vanilla creamy flavor actually. Excellent. Mild baking spice. A beautiful offering.

Wrapper #1 Ecuadorian shade

Pumped up vanilla but a loss of baking spice from the original. Now similar to fruity sweet cream flavor after fruity cereal. Baking spice is actually now more bready. There is a background of toasty flavors that are not overly appealing.

Wrapper #2 Habano 2000

Adding a crisp vegetal flavor to the sweetness. More crisp when taking shorter puffs. Spicy hot. Not pepper flavor but soft palate spice. an entire cigar of this would border on painful for me. There is a mild toasty, paper-like flavor that I do not enjoy, just lingering in the background.

Wrapper #3 Corojo

Sweetness is totally different. It's starting as deeper sweetness, cooked fruit, transitioning to a sweetened cafe con leche. Very full bodied 5/5. This is an excellent combination, though I miss some of the more "soft" sweet flavors from the unwrapped version.

Wrapper #4 Maduro Equadorian

Definitely Maduro. Sweet chocolate. Not milk but a sweetened Deep darkness. Slight crispness. Bready dessert quick-bread sweetness. Chocolate chip bread? Little hotter in smoke. Maybe 3.5/5 body

My take away from this is that I love (what I believe to be coming from) the Indonesian grown Sumatran leaf. That sweetness & baking spice makes up the core of a great cigar for me. When I smoke cigars with Indonesian tobacco I often get an overwhelming dry flavor & sensation. This tobacco didn't have that in any example (save perhaps, the crispness from the Habano, though that was borderline). Also, my Corojo leaf experience was splendid. I've said publicly that I tend not to reach for cigars that advertise "Corojo Anything". People play off of Corojo's ability to be strong & meaty. I think its strengths are in being processed longer to reveal a truly beautiful, well rounded deeper array of flavors. This is a big boy's tobacco which can play strong, sweet, suave & bold. It's no wonder it was the tobacco used in every cigar for 50 years in the most popular cigar destination on the world. Corojo wrapper with Indonesian Sumatran leaf (and possibly the Columbian filler) is truly a world class pairing.

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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by Stewmuse » Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:34 pm

kurtdesign1 wrote:Yes, yes. This is done for me. Mike and I met on Saturday mornign and smoked these testers. I was surprised by how much personality each wrapper brought to the table. Some were more akin to a bit of salt on something and some were like smothering it in gravy, coating in cheese and then going to the fridge and getting an altogether different meal. I've done this type of tasting once in the past and had similar surprising results. Frankly, I realized how much I enjoy two leaves that are often used OUTSIDE of their wheelhouse. Check it out.
Perfecto! Ian and Zed, follow Craig's lead if you can!
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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by IWinchester » Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:25 pm

Will do! I think I have one left, but have taken notes on the others. I'll get 'er done

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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by Zedman05 » Tue Jan 12, 2016 11:21 pm

Thanks Michael for the time and honor of donating these cigars.

I did not smoke these cigars all at once, nor did I smoke them on the same day, but I did enjoy them.
First off I will say that apart from one of the cigars having a small tunnel that only lasted for about an inch, the rolling overall was spot on. There was a bit of softness in one spot on one of the cigars, but overall I think Mr.S has mastered his rolling technique.
The burn for all was just fine. I have never been one to ever really complain about a burn unless it won't stay lit. I don't "touch up" a cigar unless it is not burning on one side and it's causing an issue; which I had no occurances of.

#1- Habano
My favorite. This was a wonderful pairing of wrapper to body. It mingled and played well with whichever innards Mike threw in there.
Started with a nuttiness that I cannot pinpoint. A bit of that Habano zing that I personally love. The spiciness that came off this Habano is very lightly salt and peppered. Almost halfway in it started changing from that salt and pepper spice to a more baking spice treat. Hazelnuts in the background, slight leather and a tiny touch of coco. These flavors were present until I let it go out.
Very good home rolled cigar. I would actually buy these cigars for the right price.

#2- Ecuador Maduro
I was surprised by this cigar. I was expecting lots of chocolate/dusty coco. There was only a bit of that throughout. It never changed later on, but remained the same flavors throughout.
Light toasty tobacco dominated the profile. Throw in some earthiness ( not like dirt, leather or moss but more like light mushroom"y" vegetal profile to bring down any spice). This was the only cigar I caught a citrus zest character in all the samples. I would have expected it more from the Corojo or Habano, but I got it from this darker cigar (surprised the hell outa me). Like stated before; there was a vein of coco that ran through this cigar. I am ok with it in slight doses, I just don't like it when it's a dominant flavor ( Padron maduros, San Andres wrappers).
I would rank this as my second favorite.

#3- Corojo
I have said it for a while now that I too love Corojo when done right. I would define too much Corojo as the older Camacho Corojo's. Great flavor, but they just stuffed it full of that one profile and went to town ramping it up.
This cigar was a mystery for me. On one hand I would get an unbelievable puff, then the next while it was muddled and mingled so much that I had a hard time picking out flavors. When it was good, it was really good. I would get a tangy almost orange marmalade flavor. It was great, but honestly trying to pick flavors for this review was hard. Of course it had a roasty tobacco flavor, but you guys aren't reading this far for that dribble.
If it wasn't for the muddled flavors I would have given this high praises. Now it's not to say I am not, it was just weird and as such would rank 3rd.

#4- Ecuador Shade
I was expecting Stewmuse to pull off some miracle with this wrapper for me. I have blended it with a myriad of innards myself, and never liked anything that I had rolled. This cigar to me was the least favorite. I LOVE the wrapper itself; it rolls well, hydrates fantastic, looks great and seems like the best thing out there....but it just didn't work for me with my blends or this one. Now this is not to say it's bad, just that I don't prefer it.
There is a spice that came along with this cigar: non-spicy paprika mixed with white pepper in a paste form. White pepper for me is what I look for in NC cigars. Love it. Can't get enough of it, but the two combined do not work well. A drying profile a mossy earthiness kept this cigar from being in my "can I have more" rotation.
I would not reach for this blend if I had the choice. The wrapper seemed to fight the innards too much.


Thanks again M.S. this was a blast. I was amazed at how much a wrapper changed the profile of the cigar. As you can read; I believe there were substantial changes.
P.S.- Craig I hope you have read all this at work and are now getting in trouble for not doing your job. Slacker. I kept this long just for you....

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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by Stewmuse » Wed Jan 13, 2016 10:08 am

Great post. Thanks, Zed!
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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by IWinchester » Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:06 pm

My naked cigar was very smooth and slightly sweet, like a sweet bread. Very smokable, and one of the best mild cigars I've smoked
in a while. It went really great with coffee and Baileys!

The Ecuador Maduro wrapper was surprisingly spicy. Well, for a Maduro wrapper anyway. The first inch or so was deliciously sweet, but as the cigar kept burning that sweetness disappeared. The spice through the retrohale was perfect, but overall didn't go with the innards. The stick was fairly one dimensional, mostly earth and spice. I missed the sweetness from the naked cigar, but maybe with a bigger ring gauge it could work. The finish was very nice, and when I wrote this a few minutes after the cigar I still remember enjoying it. All that said, the cigar was good, just a bit unbalanced. The filler/binder seemed to be hiding behind the wrapper.

The Ecuador shade wrapper has a wonderful flavor of sugar and grass, but makes the overall cigar very harsh. This could be a winner after a long rest. I did pick up some nice baking spice in the retrohale, but again the overall smoke is really aggressive in the mouth. I'd still say roll some more of these and put them down for a few months. Mike, do that and it might be something special, similar to your Nicaraguan blend I've loved in the past.

My version with the Habano 2000 was very nice! Thus far it has been the most cohesive blend. Not too strong, and with a good amount of flavor. Smooth smoke and pleasant little tickle through the nose. The innards were noticeable (the bready sweetness) but I also got some pepper in the retrohale that was nice and cohesive.


The corojo wrapper didnn't burn well with the filler, but I made it work. The corojo sweetness that I love was there, but the overall experience was another harsh smoke. This wrapper also obscured the innards completely.

The Habano 2000 was the best wrapper for my filler/binder, but the Ecuador Shade could be magical of left to rest for 6 months to a year. I echo Zed's view that the Maduro wrapper was very uncharacteristic for a Maduro. All in all, very well made sticks and delightful to smoke and review!!

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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by Stewmuse » Wed Jan 13, 2016 10:29 pm

Well done, Ian. Once Kip goes through his set, the forum will have a quorum! If interest is there, I will do another round this summer, using different wrappers (I'm thinking Nic, Brazilian, Criollo, and San Andres). Forward, ho!
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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by kurtdesign1 » Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:27 am

Zedman05 wrote: P.S.- Craig I hope you have read all this at work and are now getting in trouble for not doing your job. Slacker. I kept this long just for you....
That's why I come to the office when no one is around :)
Well written, Z. I find your conclusions interesting, albeit different than my own. Your thoughts on Corojo don't surprise me as I think it doesn't play well with others at times. Ecuadorian Maduro sounds as if we had similar impact, but my own was perhaps allowed to shine more than yours. Very interesting.

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Re: The Great Wrapper Experiment

Post by kurtdesign1 » Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:30 am

IWinchester wrote: The Habano 2000 was the best wrapper for my filler/binder, but the Ecuador Shade could be magical of left to rest for 6 months to a year. I echo Zed's view that the Maduro wrapper was very uncharacteristic for a Maduro. All in all, very well made sticks and delightful to smoke and review!!
Your conclusions are frustrating to read (not anything you did, mate). I'll be interested to see if we can chat up our reasons a bit more after Kip. I really am interested if the blends didn't work or if the wrappers didn't lend positively to the experience. I'm not getting what I think to be similar results to what I expected to read here. Damn.

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