BigBonner Burley Bound, Burley and Bolivia Black, in Besuki Cigar
I recently received hands of burley red tips, Bolivia Criollo Black and Maryland 609 from BigBonner. Each is from the 2012 crop. Since the MD 609 is still drying down, I made some cigars as follows:
The burley red tips were quite large, redolent of rich burley, and a beautiful, deep red color. The Bolivia Black is a medium-size leaf of tannish-brown color and a somewhat musty aroma. Mind you, this is fairly young tobacco, and has not been kilned. My expectation was that this would be a fairly "raw" tasting cigar, but I wanted to taste it anyway, to see where it began prior to kilning. In general, unkilned, un-aged leaf is too intense to use as a wrapper, since the rawness is transfered immediately to the lips and tongue. So I selected a Besuki wrapper.
To my surprise, the cigars are tasty, solid, and burn well. They are good, but not great cigars. But the fact that they are fairly nice cigars, even without kilning the filler, is an indication of how wonderful they will be with kilned leaf. (The cigar just looks like a cigar, so I didn't post a photo of it.)
I have never tasted Bolivia Criollo Black. This promises to be a great cigar filler component. Also, this 2012 (burley as well as Bolivia) is a great crop of leaf--better than my favorite 2010 burley from BigBonner. I'll sample the MD 609 in a week or so.
Hats off to Larry for a successful vintage.
Bob
I recently received hands of burley red tips, Bolivia Criollo Black and Maryland 609 from BigBonner. Each is from the 2012 crop. Since the MD 609 is still drying down, I made some cigars as follows:
- filler: 1/2 burley and 1/2 Bolivia Black, (plus a small strip of India Dark Air to compensate for the youth of the filler leaf)
- binder: burley
- wrapper: Besuki (from www.wholeleaftobacco.com)
The burley red tips were quite large, redolent of rich burley, and a beautiful, deep red color. The Bolivia Black is a medium-size leaf of tannish-brown color and a somewhat musty aroma. Mind you, this is fairly young tobacco, and has not been kilned. My expectation was that this would be a fairly "raw" tasting cigar, but I wanted to taste it anyway, to see where it began prior to kilning. In general, unkilned, un-aged leaf is too intense to use as a wrapper, since the rawness is transfered immediately to the lips and tongue. So I selected a Besuki wrapper.
To my surprise, the cigars are tasty, solid, and burn well. They are good, but not great cigars. But the fact that they are fairly nice cigars, even without kilning the filler, is an indication of how wonderful they will be with kilned leaf. (The cigar just looks like a cigar, so I didn't post a photo of it.)
I have never tasted Bolivia Criollo Black. This promises to be a great cigar filler component. Also, this 2012 (burley as well as Bolivia) is a great crop of leaf--better than my favorite 2010 burley from BigBonner. I'll sample the MD 609 in a week or so.
Hats off to Larry for a successful vintage.
Bob
