General Cigar Company: Punch "Rare Corojo" (Honduras)

Today I wanted to showcase a nice cigar I recently smoked. It's a 6x60 dark natural from Punch, called the "Rare Corojo." I recently received as an honorarium for moderating a panel at work. Thanks to colleagues Selena and Emily for this!

Interestingly enough, and despite the name, it's not a Corojo wrapper. It is rare, however - it's only released once per year, in the spring. Some of the specs: the size nomenclature is "El Doble." It's a 6 inch by 60 ring-gauge cigar, but seemed much larger. It featured a Sumatra wrapper and Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan fillers and wrapper. Overall, the cigar is attractive and even-colored with a nice box-press (rectangular shape.)

And, like many cigars produced today, Punch has Cuban heritage. Like Montecristo and many other brands, there are two variations - the Cuban version, and the commercially-available version in competition with the Cuban brand. Montecristo's second version is Dominican, while Punch's commercial version (and today's cigar) is from Honduras. As you can see, this one is a monster - however, it fits nicely in my hand, and the box-press shape makes it comfortable to hold pencil-style. It's got a pleasing color, due to the dark natural wrapper.

It lights up nicely, took a minute or two because of the size. I used a punch for the cap instead of a cutter; the rectangular-shaped box press necessitated a punch.

The taste profile is mostly of leather and tobacco, with rich natural leaf flavors with some salt and spiciness blended in. The salt and spice come a bit later into the smoking experience; it starts out pretty basic, and then quickly develops into a nice leafy smoke towards the middle. It has a mottled, cement-grey ash that clings well to the end of the cigar. Holding my hand up to it, it threw off a lot of heat - not unusual, but not common in smaller cigars. As it finished up, I was amazed at how long the cigar stayed "smokable" - that is, how long it smoked before it began to taste harsh and bitter. It lasted much longer than I expected, which was a pleasant treat.

In all, I really enjoyed it. It had a nice, robust flavor with an even burn and not a lot of objectionable aftertastes. It smoked down the end, practically, which was surprising, since I expected a cigar of this size and composition to get bitter and gross around the pinkie-finger length. But no, Punch has some surprises, and I wouldn't mind smoking this again.