Some Boneshaker Boneyard Cigars from JR Cigars

This is the third and final instalment of the Boneshaker series.  JR Cigars sent these three 4-packs to me without prior warning, and it seemed like an interesting idea do a bit of a vertical tasting, I guess.  It was fun to try the same blends in different sizes, in some cases it made a big difference.   This week I smoked the Boneshaker Boneyard series.  The base Boneshaker line and the Boneshaker Full Body Cast lines came in the same sizes. The Boneyard has the same names, but the sizes are different, with the exception of the War Hammer, which is the cigar I started with in all three lines.  The War Hammer is the 6″ x 60.  When I looked at the Bonyard “flight”, I noticed that the wrapper on this one was darker and oilier.  It was very attractive, to me at least.  This line is a Nicaraguan puro, made in the NACSA factory.  This one started with some heat, spicy pepper.  It had a heavy molasses sweetness and was unique and enjoyable.  My only complaint with this one was that the ash fell off unexpectedly about a half in in and made a mess.  

I’m not sure if it was the wrapper or not, but the other three cigars in this line were different, and not just the sizes.  Next up was the toro, the Maul. In the other lines it was a 6″ x 54, this one it was a 6″ x 50. The Nicaraguan wrapper was lighter than the War Hammer, and while it still stated spicy, it never fully developed that dark molasses sweetness. It was good, burned well, and I kept an eye on the ash. I think it was more woody tasting, with the molasses sneaking in during the second half. It’s funny how thin a 50 ring gauge cigar feels nowadays.  

The Mace in this line is 5″ x 52, as opposed to the 4½” x 60 0f the other two lines.  This one was oddly drying to my palate, and had a sourness throughout.  It also had a bit of a tight draw, which could have led to the flavor differences.  This was my least favorite of the bunch.  One wonders why the sizes for these were different when they came from the same factory. I think the other two lines were more consistent in flavor across the sizes. One would think that maybe this blend didn’t work in the other sizes? I wish the secondary band actually had the name of the line on it, it took me a while to get the stylized headstones and make the connection. 

The Morning Star had the biggest difference in size, with the Boneyard version being a 6½” x 52 torpedo as opposed to the 5″ x 56 belicoso.  I like a longer cigar, so this was OK with me, and I hoped that it would be as good as the gordo was.  This one reminded me of dark bread.  When I was a kid my mom would buy this date nut bread in a can, which we would slice up and eat with cream cheese.  Imagine bread in the shape of canned cranberry sauce.  I wonder if this is still around?  I’ll have to look.  Anyway, there was a dark molasses component to this one as well, and the burn and draw were spot on.  JR’s sells this line with the largest size coming in around $4 a cigar by the box, with is a great bargain.  If it were me, I’d go big in this line. I think the original Boneshaker line was my favorite of the bunch, but all of them were interesting, not your run of the mill bargain cigar by any stretch.  You can get an even better price if you go through this affiliate link!  Thanks to JR Cigars for allowing my to sample through the range of these three lines.  

We were going to head to the north-western part of the state today to catch tomorrow’s eclipse, but decided to stay home because the weather didn’t look favorable.  I’ll have to stop at a few local shops to see if any of them have any of the Ashton VSG Eclipse size, if not I have other VSGs on hand, as well as other sungrown cigars.  Hopefully the weather holds out here. I’d also like to welcome Flatbed Cigar Co. to the CigarCraig family. They make the Panacea brand and are based here in PA.  Look for some Panacea cigars featured in the near future as I bought a sampler (and the purchase experience was exceptional!). That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig