In Sunday’s post I mentioned stopping into W. Curtis Draper‘s in Washington DC, and, since I couldn’t stay and smoke, I at least bought a cigar before I left. I should have bought a few, but I knew I was going to have to spend some money at Shelly’s, and time’s being what they are…I really don’t have a need for more cigars. They did have a box of Fratello DMV on the counter, and they don’t have them in my area, so I grabbed one. I published the announcement about the 2019 release of these last October. I was surprised that they didn’t have the DC edition, but they did have the 2019 Maryland edition.
The 2019 Fratello DMV Maryland edition is a 5″ x 58 San Andrés wrapped cigar made at the La Aurora factory in the Dominican Republic. The wrapper on this isn’t fermented to a dark maduro color like many San Andrés wrappers, it was a milk chocolate brown. I really have no issue with a 5″ x 58 cigar, this one burned reasonably well, I needed to correct it a few times for uneven burn, but no big deal, and the raw was fine. The burn time was in the 75 minute range, I smoked it after dinner, before the excellent Flyers/Penguins hockey game (which I wouldn’t have mentioned if the outcome hadn’t been favorable!). Only the wrapper is listed in the blend info, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a leaf of Peruvian in the blend. The cigar has a delicious sweetness and really is lacking any heavy Mexican earthiness that can be overpowering sometimes. It was very well balanced and I didn’t regret the $13 price at all. It was certainly delicious and worth the price. It would have been better if I could have enjoyed it whilst relaxing in W.Curtis Draper’s beautiful store, but such is the world we live in.
That’s all for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
