Beverly Hills Manure Co. Robertson Blvd. (5 x 50)
An E2 Custodial Cigar Review!
Let's get one thing straight and out of the way - yes, that's the name of the
brand. I honestly don't know if they're still around; their website doesn't exist anymore, and other than one article in
Cigar Aficionado plus mentions at a couple of
Los Angeles cigar events, I can't find any information on them. It may be that I received a few of the last sticks from a now-
defunct company, or I may just not be looking hard enough. In any case, the
company was formed in 1983, but only started producing cigars in 2003 (in Costa Rica) due to the founder and president's enthusiasm for smoking them.
These cigars are extremely mild, probably in an attempt to fit in with the in-joke on the band. That has a picture of the front of a luxury car and the back half of a cow, in two adjacent parking places in front of an expensive-looking establishment. On the pavement in between the two is a pile of the cow's, uh, product. Yeah. By-product. The founder had indicated (according to CA) that he named the company this (and gave it this logo) to spoof the notion in Beverly Hills that their manure just didn't stink.
Well, it's a cigar, so it does stink, of course. However, it does so with remarkably little force on the smoker; in fact (although it may be due to my having recently had a number of very strong maduros) I was hard-pressed to find much flavor or nose in the smoke at all. Getting a mouthful of actual flavor that was strong enough to overcome the nose of the unburnt wrapper tobacco meant puffing hard enough that the nastier taste of tobacco that is being burnt too hot began to appear. After a bit, I realized that this might be deliberate; the smoke did have a small amount of bite, and did in fact taste like Generic Smoke. I deduce that this cigar is meant to be smoked when one needs to smoke as opposed to when one wants to revel in the experience of a cigar.
As a smoke, it was fine. The nicotine levels were low enough that I finished a robusto without getting light in the dome. The smoke was inoffensive enough that only my soupcatcher, really, whiffed noticeably afterwards of smoke. A medium draw produced a mouthful of smoke with a hint of acetyls and other 'creamy' tastes; the construction was fine, and the burn was relatively consistent (with one canoe moment that nevertheless corrected itself). The ash was quite resilient, and hung on until I gave in and tapped it off.
Probably because I didn't pay for these, I'm happy to call them 'fine smokes and inoffensive cigars.' If one didn't pay too much, they'd be a good companion to a meal with more delicate tastes, or a spirit of refined flavor - perhaps a good wine rather than a scotch or port. They're also probably quite good at simply relieving nicotine cravings without requiring the commitment or attention of a well-flavored stick.