Diesel Esteli Puro

Diesel Esteli Puro is a Nicaraguan puro with a smooth, brown, minimally oily wrapper with a few visible veins. The cigar has a cedar sleeve from over halfway up from the black foot band.

The dominant flavors are cedar, earth, pepper, and a citrus sweetness. Bread/toast, hay, bittersweet chocolate and spice (nutmeg, cinnamon?) intersperse on a few puffs. This is a bold, full-bodied smoke. The retrohale is very peppery – like a blast of chili powder. This thing will clear out any nasal congestion you might have.

Tight draw, loosened up several times with a few toothpick jabs, but then it would Archie Bell & The Drells on me – do the Tighten Up. Unfortunately, it didn’t “make it mellow.” The bittersweet chocolate notes turned to simply bitter. When the draw did open up, the smoke production increased, and I could taste some of the flavors – for a while. Am I getting too fast for the room again or just too old? You have to be in your late 60s/70s to get the Archie Bell reference. For the younger crowd, Google it. It was a #1 hit in 1968.

What I could taste, I liked but the tight draw and lack of smoke output killed the flavors most of the time. Tough call. I’ll give it a 3.

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