Punch Double Corona
This is another free cigar I picked up when I bought a box of Punch London Club's at Holt's. It's been in my humidor for a long time. But for the most part it seemed fine when I inspected it.
Construction: The cigar burned very evenly, and the ash was extremely dense which tends to indicate good construction. However, the draw was terrible, it seemed like I was sucking through a coffee stirrer. For a cigar of it's ring guage that's inexcusable. It did loosen up after about a third of the cigar.Shortly after being lit up cracking started around the burning end and the cut end, this indicates improper handling. This is very possibly due to the time it spent in my humidor before I refurbished it. However, the rest of the tobacco in the filler and on the rest of the wrapper seemed fine.
Taste: It was tasty. It has pretty much the same flavor as the London Club, but with a thicker ring guage, the flavors were a little more pronounced, and oddly enough more mild. I even detected a little bit of coffee flavor.
Stats: It's 6 3/4 inches by 48 ring gauge. It's quite the hodgepodge of nationalities, with a Connecticut seed grown in Ecuador for a wrapper, binder from Honduras, and filler from Nicaragua, Honduras and the Domincan Republic. Holt's sells them for $4.50 a pop.
Overall: I wouldn't pay for these cigars. However, I'm willing to concede that it might have been improperly handled by me. Hopefully, I'll pick up some free ones the next time I run out, and I can reevaluate.
