Alec Bradley Tempus Creo Lancero

Apr 20, 2009 Cigar

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Our first Lancero review for Lancero week is the Alec Bradley Tempus Creo.

Back in 2001 , while visiting a small farm tucked away in a valley on the Honduran, Nicaraguan border; Alan Rubin was shown a wrapper leaf being harvested in very limited quantities. Grown on just a few acres and not intended for commercial production, he knew this wrapper was something special. Over the next several years, he worked very closely with the farmer and purchased only the best wrapper from each harvest. Alan decided to keep a watchful eye and invest in this wrapper leaf for a special project. The time has come and that is why it’s called Tempus. The tobacco used in this work of love are all from the finest fields in Central America. These harvests have been small and not massed produced by the “commercial” growers usually tapped for such a project. The results are clear. Aged tobacco with a full bodied yet smooth, satisfying smoke sure to appeal to the most discerning smoker.

Hailing from Honduras, Alec Bradley Tempus is a concoction of tobaccos cultivated since 2001, carefully selected strictly for their incredible quality and blended to create the ideal full-bodied cigar that is as smooth as it is flavorful.

Produced at Fabrica de Tabacos Raices Cubanas in Honduras, Tempus is Latin for “time” which is more than an appropriate title for this blend. When creating Tempus, Alan Rubin spent years in an area along the border of Honduras and Nicaragua where a particular tobacco was growing in extremely small quantities on only a few acres of land. Alan began purchasing the best wrapper from this farm, in small amounts, over a period of several years and finally obtained enough to produce a phenomenal cigar; one that balances strength with flavor, creating a very smooth character.

Alec Bradley Tempus contains a mix of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos, held tightly together by an Indonesian binder. These leaves are then concealed with a Honduran grown Habano wrapper, which adds a bit more strength to the blend along with some spicy undertones.

And now, on to the review.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Size: 7.5 x 41 (Lancero)
Origin: Honduras
Wrapper: Honduran Habano
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Honduras

APPEARANCE and CONSTRUCTION -

The Creo is a very nice looking lancero. It has a dark chocolaty brown wrapper. The wrapper is well applied with the traditional pigtail at the end. The wrapper is even and smooth with a slight toothiness to it. The Cero is slightly spongy to the touch but not overly soft. I expect this from a lancero as there is less filler than other vitolas. The Creo has has a band at the head as well as the foot as do most of the vitolas in the Tempus line.

SMOKING CHARACTERISTICS –

The Creo wrapper didn’t give off much aroma. The foot had slight scent of tobacco and some barnyard, but also very faint. Being the masochist I am, I decided to use my trusty punch cutter on the Creo. Trust me, punching a lancero isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, and it takes lots of practice to get it right. If the cigar is properly humidified though, I can ususally get it right. The Creo punched perfectly. The draw seemed perfect with a slight resistance. Not always a sure thing with Lanceros. It lit easlily and maintained a very nice even burn throughout the smoke. I had to perform one minor touch up when I let it sit to long and it flamed out. Other than that, no issues. The Creo gave off a very good amount of smoke. The smoke was light and airy and ascended to the ceiling quickly.

FLAVOR –

I have to admit, this was a very puzzling cigar. The flavors started out decently with a hearty earthiness and light wood flavor. There was a noticeable spice in the back of the throat that remained for the entire smoke. I guess what was so puzzling was that the flavor profile remained exactly the same throughout the entire cigar. I suppose I was expecting a little more complexity in the flavor profile. The cigar was full-bodied but with simplistic flavors that stayed the same the entire smoke. It was admittedly a little disappointing. I had the Tempus Centuria and Imperator before and I recall enjoying those cigars very much which is why the Creo was such a surprise. I was so surprised in fact that I smoked a second one from a different shop later in the day just to make sure I didn’t get a dud. Same opinion.

OVERALL IMPRESSION –

The impression that the Creo left me with was that this is a full-bodied cigar with a simple flavor profile. With an MSRP of around $7-$8, I guess I expected a little more, particularly with the 94 rating Cigar Aficionado gave the Tempus earlier in 2008. I would pass on this.

TOTAL SCORE – 84

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Tags: Alec Bradley, Tempus

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Cigar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.