Flor de Copan Monarcas

The Sybil-like Gurkha Evil almost made it. The exquisite Pinar del Rio Clasico will just have to wait. Today's review is dedicated to the Flor de Copan  Monarcas. More precisely, the review is about an indispensable ingredient that assuredly impacts the cigar smoking experience. No, not the flavor, the burn, the drag, the construction, aesthetic pleasure. Those are all factors that weigh heavily. However, the cigar's sublimation is directly linked with what you are doing, or thinking, or who you are with. At the right time and space, the environment can elevate a cigar's CS rating a full point. Just like an outward blowing wind can turn  a routine outfield fly ball into a home run. Or it can have the opposite effect. The mind plays tricks on us. 

Santa Rosa is the seat of the Copan region in western Honduras. It is poor, beautiful, charming and clearly has a "friendly-only" residents rule. I travelled there two years ago this month to witness the tobacco fields that welcomed exiled Cubans who brought barely anything other than tobacco seeds. The seeds carried history, cultivation experience, and dreams and hope for a better life. The Altadis Flor de Copan Monarca is made there. The not-quite churchill length cigar is encased in a handsome white tube. My humidor only had two left and I decided to go ahead and smoke one to commemorate the two year anniversary of the trip. Both then and now, the well-crafted construction is evident. The cigar burns evenly, with beautiful white ashes that just do not fall off. The flavor is earthy but not soily. It  is aromatic and carries a  hint of sun-drenched coffee in its taste. It is a tad sweet, cedary and medium-bodied.  This is not an overpowering cigar. Note - it falls a bit short of being a Puro because the filler is partly Nicaraguan. It's taste and quality is consistent from first (and only) light to the last half-inch stub.

So, two years later: Hola to Cecilia at the cigar store that sold us the cigar boxes and re-opened the store after closing time. Saludos to Manuel, the only Cuban in town who is a doctor by trade and converted his house into a restaurant (the pork was a bit dry). A big wave to the handful of kids that were hitchhiking up the steep Dulce Nombre hill. When we stopped for them they ran and jumped on the truck bed and were as happy as a kid receiving dozens of Christmas presents. Good riddance to the potholes. Memories of pretty and smiling women that tend to look downward and the kind men with their hats. I want to go back just for a hat. Take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind.

I don't know when I will smoke the last Monarca I brought back with me. 

CS Rating: 3.5 (without wind factor); 4.5 wind aided

El Alcalde