Is the Punch Uppercut cigar a cut above the rest? Did General Cigar do it right? If you already saw the rating number of 2.5 stars, you will realize that they fell short. Why? Lets discuss it. On the cigar there is a foot band with a nice picture of the Ometepe region of Nicaragua. Seeing that, and knowing that this island in Lake Nicaragua produces some of the best tobacco in the world, really intrigued me. Thus, I picked up a couple to try out. The wrapper is an Ecuadorian Sumatra, the binder is Nicaraguan, and filler Ometepe Nicaraguan. The sizes that I tried were the Grand Corona (6.0 x 45) and the Robusto (5.2 x 50), just to make sure that I gave these stogies a chance. They also come in a Toro (6.6 x 54), but I usually don’t like cigars with that large a ring gauge.
Flavor and Aroma
The first thing I noticed was the very spicy, peppery taste of the wrapper, which moved quickly into the extremely bitter classification. This was a bad start to what I was hoping to be a nice smoke. It was mostly down hill from there. I guess this would be considered a full bodied cigar, but I just could not get past the burning sensation on my lips and tongue from the harsh wrapper. How was the aroma? I guess I would say it was not very memorable.
Draw and Construction
The appearance of the cigar is nothing outstanding. As I said, the foot band has a great picture on it and lets leave it at that. The draw is very tight, which I really hate when it comes to any cigar. This led to multiple relighting of the cigars (I smoked two of them) until I just put them down and walked away at about the halfway point.
Value
No, no, no, no and NO!!!! Anytime I pay between $6 and $7 for a single cigar I expect more than a picture of a place where great tobacco grows, I also expect to be smoking it. By clicking on the "Compare Prices" button, you can find 5 packs for around $30 and boxes of 20 for around $100, but shipping will drag that price up a bit. I really expected more from the industry's 1000-pound gorilla, but instead of an "uppercut" it was more like a "sucker punch".
