April 2005 Archives

I recently read an article from Time Magazine talking about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's arguments against lifting the sanctions (14) against Cuba. The article showed a photo of DeLay smoking a Cuban cigar while on a visit to Jerusalem in 2003. While DeLay's actions at the time were perfectly legal, under today's laws he would be comitting a crime to consume a Cuban product while abroad. After reading this article, the somewhat hypocritical stance of Mr. DeLay made wonder "Just how effective are our sanctions against Cuba, and how much impact are we really having on the Cuban economy?" So I did some research.

This past weekend I pulled a cigar out of the collection to try.  I wanted something different, and I'd picked up several of John T.'s Crowd Pleaser Tubos - Cherry Cream flavored.  I hadn't had one before, so this one qualified as different.  Like every new cigar I try, I decided to review it.

The outer white plastic tube protecting the John T. cigar is printed in multiple colors.  It isn't an especially attractive design, but it isn't the worst I've ever seen either.  A small plug of foam sits between the cap of the tube and the foot of the cigar.  Extracting the cigar from the tube took a pretty firm shake but resulted in no damage to the cigar.

These John T. Crowd Pleaser Tubo  cigars are billed as the "original aromatic cigar".  They are made in the Dominican Republic with fillers made from pipe tobacco.  In this case, that pipe tobacco is infused with a cherry cream flavoring.

The cigar's size is 5.5" with a 38 ring gauge.  The outer wrapper is a medium to dark brown, with minimal veins.  Although I'd stored it outside my humidor in its tube due to a lack of space, the cigar seemed appropriately moist and ready to smoke.  It lit reasonably easy with my torch style lighter.  The burn was more even than some cigars I've tried lately, but was slightly off from a true straight, even burn.  The ash was a salt and pepper gray, very firm, coming off only when I wanted it to.

The aroma of the smoke had a very slight pipe tobacco smell to it, and was pleasant though not spectacular.  The draw was a little tougher than other cigars I've smoked recently, but not so much as to be a problem.  I got 30-45 minutes out of the cigar.  The flavor of the smoke, which did not provide (to my tastebuds) any hint of the cherry cream flavoring you smelled in the smoke, was quite mild.  It was a decent smoke overall, and I will very likely finish the others in my collection eventually. 

On a 1-10 scale, with 10 being excellent, this cigar rated about a 6 in my review.  That makes it worth smoking if you come across it inexpensively, but nothing to go out of your way for.

Critics of video games like Grand Theft Auto claim that the content of these games somehow seduces players into committing the same or similar crimes in the real world.  I've always disagreed with this point of view.  Here's an illustration of what I'm talking about...