I went on a bit of a buying spree recently. In addition to buying a bunch of Dunbarton cigars at last week’s event at Harrisburg Beer and Cigar, I picked up a sampler from Flatbed Cigars. It should be noted that there are always discount codes for use on their site (USA20 and TRY20 are two), and there’s a daily deal that can be accessed on the left sidebar of my site. I saw this sampler and it looked like something I wanted to try. It’s billed as a field to field sampler, representing various combinations of strengths, countries of origin and sizes. I smoked four of the six this week. I like to keep my sunday posts around four cigars, I’m not sure I’d read past that, so I don’t expect others to either. It also gives me a few days through the week to enjoy cigars 
without having to think about them. I started with the Farmers Blend Sumatra. This is listed on the website as 7″ x 60, which is accurate, the printed handout which accompanied the sampler lists it as 6″ x 70, as well as other places on the website. I’m glad it wasn’t the later, although 7″ x 60 is still a formidable cigar, the kind you hope you like when trying it for the first time! This has a Sumatra wrapper, a binder with the ambiguous “Cuban Seed” designation, and fillers from Pennsylvania, Nicaragua and he DR. The Nicaraguan and Dominican are classified Ligero, with two different DR Ligeros. This is probably the strongest in the sampler, but I didn’t find it to be overly so. It started out with some dry, sourness, but it built nicely and had a very nice flavor. I found it to be an interesting cigar throughout the two hours or so it took me to smoke it.
The next one I smoked was the Henshaw Street, a 6½” x 54 cigar with a San Andrés wrapper, Dominican binder and PA, Nicaraguan Ligero and what I guess is Dominican Cubano seco. The name refers to a back road, and is a rustic blend. This was a really enjoyable cigar for me. It had a nice, sweet spice which I found quite enjoyable. Burn and draw were good, it need a touch up here. and there, but that kind of added to the appeal. it was solidly medium in strength, but very flavorful I’ve had two good cigars in this sampler so far, fingers crossed on the rest.
Saturday I cut the grass and did some other stuff around the house, and wasn’t feeling like I wanted to smoke powerhouse cigars, so I concentrated on the milder end of the spectrum in the sampler. I started with the Harvest, presented in a 6″ x 50 toro. This has a sun grown Connecticut wrapper, as opposed to shade grown, it sure wasn’t broadleaf. the binder is Dominican and it has DOminican and Nicaraguan Ligero in the filler, which is odd for a mild cigar. I thought this was a solid Dominican shade type cigar, with sweet cream and nuts flavors. Very nice while recovering and watching some Olympics coverage.
Later I went with the other cigar that was listed as mild-medium, the Track 7. This has the same Connecticut grown wrapper as the Harvest, with two Dominican Ligeros and a seco, Nicaraguan Ligero and some Kentucky Fire Cured in the mix. The fire cured is subtle, but apparent. It has the distinctive tang without the heavy smokiness, akin to the Lecia Black or the Cuevas Patrimonio. The tang went nicely with the smooth, creaminess, making for a nice blend. This was a 6″ x 60, and was well balanced, and burned well. I still have the VLI Pennsylvania 41 Small toro and the Pennsyltucky PA Broadleaf toro to go, they might be the two I looked forward to smoking the most. I have had the Pennsyltucky in a different size, but it’s been many years! I continue to be impressed by the Panacea/Flatbed offerings. They are an advertiser, but I’ve purchased all of the cigars I’ve smoked from them.
Next week I’ll showcase another Pennsylvania based cigar company. Until the next time,
CigarCraig
