A couple of weeks ago we, the family and I, camped in the keys at a wonderful state park on Long Key, spent eight days there. Most of the days were spent frolicking in the water while the afternoons were spent fishing from one of the little bridges nearby. Most evenings I spent relaxing in a chair smoking a great cigar and enjoying the natural surroundings. One of the days we went into Key West, mostly because I had my nephew with me and he had never been, we really wouldn’t have gone aside from that. While there I picked up a House Special from the Original Key West Cigar Factory cart located outside of the Conch Tour Train station on Front Street. That night I placed it in my travel humidor and planned on smoking it later.

Well today I smoked it. Well maybe not smoked it but tried to smoke it I should say. Here is the “lipstick on the pig” description:


House Special - 25 Count
Never a complaint, our House Special is a traditional robusto size that is just about everything a cigar can be. It's tasty, lasts a good while and just the right blend of pure Dominican long-filler and binder and medium shade Sumatran Cameroon. It's a winner that friends like to share with friends.
Ring Size: 50
Length: 5

Nothing special about the cigar, wrapper had some good size veins but the smell was nice. I punched the end and did a pre-light taste. “What the hell?” Obviously the end was sugar dipped, I thought for a moment that I had stuck a swisher sweet in my mouth, from here on out everything just goes downhill. Lighting the cigar seemed to take some effort and within minutes started to canoe and even though the draw was good I couldn’t get any smoke out of the cigar without huffing away at it, which in turn made it hot. What smoke I could get out of it tasted like burnt garbage. This lasted for about an inch before I gave up and clipped the end, thinking I could relight it. This also didn’t produce anything but the same results. With about three and a half inches left of the cigar I gave up. Curiosity got the better of me and I split the remains open. While this is touted as a long filler cigar there was plenty of short filler present, I would actually classify it as a Cuban sandwich fill. Needless to say I would rather have had the Swisher Sweet.