Joya De Nicaragua Dark Corojo Antano - Saturday, Mar. 6th

For many people, spring break means getting crazy drunk and doing regrettable things in exotic locations. For example, Ryan (of Pulling A Ryan) fame is in an all-inclusive resort somewhere in the tropics. Dominican Republic? Probably something like that. That all-inclusive includes the sweet sweet water of life. All he can drink. He may come home in a box. For me, however, spring break heralds in a wonderful time of years called "Warmth". Yeah, it's finally getting warm enough that I can stand to park my ass outside on a not-as blustery day and smoke a fine cigar. Or, in this case, head to Uptown Cigar and chat with Isy and the regulars. One cigar I had been paying particular attention to in the cigar community was the Joya De Nicaragua Dark Corojo. I am a corojo junkie. If corojos were turkey, I would be like Ralphie's dad in A Christmas Story.

You've never seen A Christmas Story? Shame on you. Go watch it and then continue on with the review. I'll wait. Really, scoot. You don't have time? Alright, alright. I'll give you the Cliffnotes if you promise to watch it next Christmas. Here you go:


Ok. If you replace "turkey" with corojo, you get the gist of things. Now, I'm not sure what hoodoo and voodoo that Johnathan Drew does to get a corojo wrapper so deliciously dark like that but it looks goooooood. The fact that it packs a healthy punch of ligero in it helps a lot too. I loves me some strong cigars. When I saw Isy had it on the shelf, my perennial problem of trying to figure out what to smoke when I step into the Uptown humidor evaporated like a morning mist. So how was it? Well, I don't have pictures but here we go. Watch your feet because I'm about to drop some knowledge:

It started out, admittedly, rough. The pre-light draw was spice and chocolate, like one of those Aztec milk chocolates you get that has the chile powder in it. The first quarter was a spice blast and it almost felt like a discordant spice. I didn't think it was that good, honestly. It bit into the back of my throat and made my mouth tingly. I was worried. I love the hell out of the normal Antano, I love corojo, and I love ligero. Why is this not going well? Luckily, once it progressed to the half-way point it had calmed considerably and mellowed out. The super pungent spice faded a bit and hints of caramel started to come out. Leather in there too but not fresh leather like a pair of new oxford shoes but rather like an old catcher's mitt. It had leather but it was in the background; faded through years of use so that it was just a faint whiff when the ball smacked meatily home. But, uh, in cigar form. Getting down to the last quarter was pretty static. It was a nice flavor but it didn't evolve much past the mid-point.

In short, it was an alright smoke. It was $9.85 with NYS tax so I'd imagine it'd be about $6-$7 for most other people which I would pay again, I think. I'd like to see it with 6 months/ a year of age to see if the beginning mellows out because it was really rough for me. My friend Pat described it as almost "gritty" which I agree with. Also, as a note, three of us were smoking them there and Pat and the other guy were having burn problems. They have a tendency to tunnel from what I've seen. So be forewarned.

Sidenote: As I was perusing the internet looking for the Joya de Nicaragua website (www.joyadenicaragua.com.ni doesn't work for me), I went through the Drew Estate website. In their brands is the "Kult of Drew" offerings with a "coming soon" sign on it. I dunno what it is but I want it.