19 months of rest on this one. Flavors are full of coffee, chocolate, and pepper. The draw is a tad tight, but the burn stays true and doesn't seem to limit the flavors. A darker cigars that generally smokes pretty well.
1/3-hints of chocolate and coffee, 2/3-pepper and some bitterness, 3/3-more pepper. Shallow cap. Uneven burn, I had to touch up multiple times. It was an ok smoke, I tend to gravitate towards medium/mellow cigars. Not my favorite.
TL;DR: A moderately complex assortment of dark flavor notes through two enjoyable thirds, but beware of the end.
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70% RH @ Cap, 65% RH @ foot - Home humidor aged 5 months.
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Initial observations - Dark chocolate mixed with milk chocolate colored wrapper. Very visible seams. A couple visible veins. There’s a matte look and texture to the cigar, not a lot of oil or “tooth”. The cigar has a good firmness. The foot is tidy and shows densely packed filler. The foot band is impressive and classy without being overly opulent. Font and color choices are spot on, along with the texturing that does not appear on the main band. Scents off the unit wrapper are of coffee, dark chocolate, cinnamon, and hay. The foot scents are significantly more muted; there is a faint cinnamon, maybe coffee, but that’s it, and it’s hard to pick up without a long inhale. The foot band doesn’t slide off like a traditional one, rather it is peeled off like a regular main band. The complex cap is set well, straight, and deeply, and took my double sided scissor cut well.
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Cold draw - The draw itself is a little on the tight side, but still workable. Flavor notes included coffee, cinnamon, and a slight nuttiness.
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Light up - Flavors were bold on the palate and included espresso, walnut, oak, and black pepper. The retrohale had black pepper and dark chocolate. A slight finish started to come on quickly.
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First third - A canoe started on the burn almost immediately, but I can’t fault the cigar because of the slightly breezy conditions I smoked in, and the difficulty I had with my lighter trying to get the stick lit. All the same, I afforded it the opportunity to correct itself. The ash itself was light gray and flaky. A lot has been said about the power and pepper of this stick. And while I did feel black pepper sitting at the back of my throat fairly early on, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before from other cigars. The pepper is also very present in the retrohale, but I’ve definitely smoked other manufacturers that tried much harder to obliterate my sinuses. One thing that really did stand out to me was how dry the smoke texture was, and how it made my whole mouth feel dry after every exhale. All that said, through the first third, the flavor notes I got were espresso, leather, a little bit of earth, and some walnuts on the palate, along with black pepper, a faint dark chocolate, and cedar on the retro, with black pepper, espresso, and hay in the finish. The cigar ashed itself with 0.5” left in the first third. Transitioning into the second third and I started to get a couple more sweet notes like maple and sweet cream.
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Second third - There was a decent room aroma of a standard cigar with a touch of woodiness. Strength ramped up from medium plus to full bodied. The canoe corrected itself, but the burn line stayed slightly wavy. Flavor notes transitioned and changed somewhat, but not a ton. Dark chocolate, minerals, espresso, reduced black pepper, some cooking spices like nutmeg, and hay were on the palate. The sweetness in the earlier transition melded into a nice bready, non-toasty note, or perhaps a candied walnut. The retro had milk chocolate, cedar, cream, hay, and sweet tobacco, while the finish stayed espresso and hay. My cigar ashed itself again at the end of the third. No notable transitions into the final third aside from the increase in nicotine strength.
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Final third - Leather and mineral notes returned on the palate and in the finish along with musty earth, but the darkness got darker. The espresso note started getting bitter. The dark chocolate did too. Tobacco flavor began hanging around longer. The oak became a charred oak. Mineral notes got saltier, and the retrohale pepper got a lot spicier. Interestingly, a floral note appeared on the finish about halfway through this third. The last unintentional ash happened less than a 0.5” from the main band. The final band came off easily…once I got my nail under it, which itself was a little struggle.
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Other notes - Overall, I enjoyed the first two thirds much more than I expected to, but the final third let me down and got worse as I smoked it. One positive note, the tobacco flavor itself never got bitter, even when other flavor notes did. I took 1 hour and 25 minutes to get to a 1” nub.
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Personal Final Score - 81
I’m new at smoking cigars and enjoy more of a semi-sweet chocolate / coffee taste. However, I got a little leather, earthy, spice flavor with little hints of chocolate. Great after taste. M81 is very smooth, slow burn, complex & just right for a Sunday evening. Cheers!
Has a dark earthy and slightly sweet aroma also notes of hay. Cold draw has notes of sweet citrus, salty leather, and pepper spice. First draw is surprisingly smooth with white pepper, toasted oak, cocoa, and a nice black pepper on the retrohale. Also has a light sweetness on the retrohale, maybe even a bit floral. First third brings in a little leather, roasted peanut, dark coffee, and cedar on the retrohale while maintaining the initial notes. Smoke is thick, creamy, and abundant. Second third remains similar with some dark chocolate notes and a little more black pepper on the retrohale. It has great toasted oak notes and aroma. Final third holds the notes with the addition of a metallic note on the back end. This is a great stick but requires a serious time investment
Enjoyable smoke, In the line of drew estate with dark chocolates tones with espresso I prefer feral pig or liga Pravada no 9 to this m81 blackened. But I wouldn’t hesitate to pick this up again if either of those are offhand.
