El Mejor Expresso Robusto
Size: 5.5 x 50
Tobacco:Honduran filler, with Mexican maduro wrapper
Price: $2

I picked up 3 or 4 of these cigars from Paul Shook over a year ago. I am fond of the original El Mejor Emerald (green label), a decent value-priced medium-body corojo cigar with a cedar sleeve and a shaggy foot. However, the maduros have been slightly disappointing. First, the wrapper is obviously dyed to give that coal-black look. It doesn't pass the wet finger test. Second, it's box pressed, which I normally don't prefer.

There is a pleasant initial burst of spice, with a sort of rough hewn flavor that I imagine in all Mexican tobacco. But after that intial burst, the cigar is fairly pedestrian, as it struggles with a tendency to canoe or burn out, and intermittent bitterness.

The two I smoked pair decently with a single-malt scotch like Old Pulteney, and as long as I just want to idyll the afternoon away with the kids in the backyard or do a little work on the laptop at night on the back porch, I've no real complaints. But this is not a cigar I would purchase again. Even at this price point.