Famous Nicaraguan Selection 5000 Toro

Small ring gauge and weak nic

Small ring gauge and weak nic less

A while back i tossed in a few bundles of the...  more

A while back i tossed in a few bundles of these Nic 5000 s on an order. I bought both the TORO and 6x60. One thing is usually rock solid when a cigar is made by AJ Fernandez, it s pretty well made and usually has something in the flavor profile that I enjoy. I ve smoked well over 10,000 of AJ s cigars over the years. My office is adorned by a picture of AJ in one of his fields and he personalized it to me before signing it. He s the best all around full monty cigar whiz in the business today IMO. He grows great tobacco, he cures it just right, then he ferments it to perfection. But the next step is where the man is leaps and bounds the best in the world. That would be selecting and blending various tobacco leaf to come up with some of the best cigars I ve ever smoked in my life. As he became exponentially larger year after year, I worried his quality would slide. Sadly, I ve had more tightly wound cigars from AJ over the last year or two than at any time previous. I use a long wooden skewer to break up the tightness when I encounter it in one of his cigars. 8 out of 10 times that resolves the issue really well. Oddly enough, with the FSS Nic 4000 s and 5000 s from AJ, I haven t had a tight draw or bad burner yet. The way more expensive Diesel line in the Unlimited, Wicked, 10th Anniversary, etc is where I ve encountered these tight draw issues. Not a lot of them by any means, but far more than I ve ever experienced in the past. I have such a great fondness for the man and his skills, I m very forgiving. With that out of the way, let me randomly muse about these Nic 5000 s. These cigars, to my taste buds and yes I retrohale all the time and have been for 40 plus years, which allows me to actually taste the cigar way better than by not retrohaling As a side note, I wash my sinuses out with Saline Nasal Spray every night. That prevents a lot of the yucky s from happening. Anyway, I digress. The Toro in this line is rolled really well. Always firm to the touch with as close to a perfect draw and even burn as I could ever expect. The wrappers on these are nice, a nice almost dark brown color with very light veining. The prelight aroma is pretty nice with hints of barnyard and fresh tobacco. For me, these 5000 s smoke prefectly. They burn nice end even at a nice pace. They stay lit for extended period when I set my cigar down for an extended period. That alone is very impressive for any cigar, let alone one price at under 50 bucks a bundle. The ash that is left behind is a white-gray color that s solid, but it doesn t hold on the the cigar for much more than an inch. Now to the flavor profile. I like my cigars on the fuller side of medium with some nice notes of white pepper and allspice. This one gives me just that. It s not a heavy hitter like the Unlimited or Wicked, but a notch or two below it. Where it really shines is in the smoothness department. This blend is really quite i detest this word elegant in that it s got a very clean flavor profile with no sour or harsh notes. It s not an overly complex flavor profile, but it s still a notch or two above just straight white pepper and allspice, with maybe some hints of chocolate and a bit of a woody thing. Overall, these are really an enjoyable cigar, both fresh off the truck or aged for a year. I am really concerned that Famous is going to discontinue these, as they re down to one size. Same with the 4000 which is also from AJ s house of magic.That d be a really huge disappointment for me. I just recently grabbed 20 plus bundles of the 4000 s, 5000 s and 6000 s. I wanted to grab 50 more but I need to see a great deal on them like the recent Halloween discount. I m afraid that more and more retailers and e-tailers are going the way of the 5 to 10 dollar per cigar route. If and when that becomes the case, After 40 years of daily cigar smoking, I ll just quit. I ve never smoked a single $5 to $30 cigar including real deal Habanos that I felt were worth the money. Nicaragua in my mind is making the best cigars on the planet right now. This opinion comes from a guy who has also smoked 1000 s of Habanos over the years. The only cigar blender IMO who comes remotely close to reaching me getting my money s worth is AJ, with Dion G a close second. However, I have a line in the sand and since I smoke 4 to 6 or even 8 cigars per day, and have for decades, I m not willing to pay too much more than what the current best deals are. If i smoked a few cigars a week, I d be fine with spending 10 bucks a stick. But I m a guy who never learned moderation in anything I pursue when it comes to the little pleasures we all enjoy in life.Thankfully, I don t drink and I ve been happily married to my first true love for decades. Yeah, way more information than anyone cares about, but it s a plea to SKATES aka Mr. Arthur Z, the world famous owner of Famous Smoke Shop. Keep the 4000 s and 5000 s coming Arthur, please. They re as good as the initial batch of Nic 3000 s way back in the day. The once almost famous Oliva X, which turned into the legendary early version of the Nic 3000 s only due to Arthur s amazing ability to bring world class cigars to his customers at fair prices. Today s Nic 3000 s are still a decent cigar but not even close to the originals. I smoked 1000 s of those and every single one blew my mind. I miss the days when Oliva still owned Oliva. That s all I got. Sorry for the long winded musings, but I felt the need to keep Mr Z informed as to what we want. LOL less

I have been smoking the Nicaraguan selection ...  more

I have been smoking the Nicaraguan selection 5000 gordos for a few years, they have been discontinued unfortunately. So that being said I ordered a bundle of the Toro maduros. These are good, not quite the flavor that the gordos were, but still a good cigar. I will order more! less