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Epicurian Vintage 2007 Armando Gutierrez

This 6×56 stick features a dark chocolate mottled wrapper with minimal veins, tight seams, firm even pack, double cap and mild chocolate aroma. First light reveals a perfect draw with plentiful, thick rich full bodied smoke giving flavors of an oily, creamy leather, pepper and spice, slight earthiness and tobacco with a long rich finish. The first third ramps up all the same flavors to a decadent level, only dropping the general tobacco flavor in favor of more creamy leather. Burn is very good, draw is perfect and the smoke output is excellent. 30 minutes in just starting the 2nd third, the ash falls off cleanly, flavors remain largely the same adding a hint of a cocoa mix flavor just on the draw, while the finish grows shorter and mellows out. Body is down to a medium-full while a bit of strength is creeping in. 45 minutes in at the 1/2 way point the leather has dropped off replaced by a deep chocolate still keeping the creamy, oily body and finish. The strength continues to ramp up, not overwhelming but it hits you in your chest a bit. Ending at 1:20 where it got too warm for my taste the last third showed no further changes. Thank you very much to Steve, Owner of Epicurian Cigars for providing me this to review! This line is officially being launched in August at the IPCPR show and will be distributed through Blanco Cigars.