Wrapper: Brazilian
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican, Nicaraguan, Peruvian
Size: 5 x 52 “Robusto”
Body: Medium
Price: $8.00
Humidor Aging Time: 1 month
Dry box time: 48 hours
Today we take a look at the Suriel Day & Night
BACKGROUND:
Regular production.
Released October 2014.
The Suriel Toro Majestuoso was released at the same time.
From the Suriel Cigar Co. web site:
“Suriel Cigars and KBF (Kelner Boutique Factory) have teamed up to create the Robusto Day & Night.
“This exceptionally crafted cigar delivered in a 5 x 52 format, is made with care and attention to detail in order to bring you a rich, sweet and creamy yet subtle blend.
“By blending four different kinds of leaves from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Peru it is our desire that this blend reaches a pleasant and interesting complexity that could be perfectly smoked at any time of the day.
“It is easy to say that any cigar is not just another cigar on the market and very few follow through. Our cigars are handcrafted with premium quality and rare tobacco leaves, carefully chosen by Kelner Boutique Factory, KBF. Our master blender Hendrick Kelner Jr. has more than 25 years of experience, and we altogether have put our effort to create pleasant and complex blends.
“Suriel has received overwhelming praise by the top cigar connoisseurs in the industry and we can’t wait for you to experience a Suriel Cigar too.”
DESCRIPTION:
Not a particularly good looking cigar. Sort of plain looking. An oily, brown lunch bag colored wrapper with hints of a reddish hue. It’s one thing to look at the in bright sunlight rather than indoors with artificial light. Loads of veins. But hidden seams.
A perfectly applied triple cap. A nice, solid stick. Mostly smooth but some toothiness here and there.
The cigar band is ordinary looking, as well.
AROMAS AND COLD DRAW NOTES:
From the shaft, I smell floral notes, red pepper, citrus, vanilla, dried fruit, and chocolate.
From the clipped cap and the foot, I smell barnyard, chocolate, pepper, citrus, and vanilla.
The cold draw presents flavors of citrus, barnyard, red hot pepper, nice creaminess, chocolate, coffee, bread, and caramel.
FIRST THIRD:
The draw is nice and easy. A pleasure.
First flavors are: red pepper…in fact a spice bomb, vanilla, chocolate, orange citrus, and creaminess.
¾” in, I get a V burn and must torch the whole foot to even it out. Not a good start. And makes me question the construction.
Strength is medium body.
There is a perfumey scent to the stick. Very nice. And it lingers on the palate, as well.
The creaminess is strong and pleasant.
I looked at the only reviews available on this blend. I have to hand it to Cigarnoise.com. This reviewer can taste flavors that are well beyond my palate. Especially, on the Suriel Day & Night.
The char line is anything but razor sharp. I can’t remember the last time I smoked a cigar with a razor sharp char line. Although, I found a La Palina Classic that did have that clean, and gorgeous, burn line.
SECOND THIRD:
Smoke time is 25 minutes.
It would have been longer if I didn’t have to torch the foot so many times to keep it from running off.
Strength is an even keeled medium body. Something one would expect from Kelner.
Flavors: fruity, creaminess, vanilla, Ritz crackers, nutty, chocolate, caramel, espresso, cedar, bread, and golden raisins.
I’ve hit the sweet spot.
This is a very mild, easy going blend. I’d like to try the Toro Majestuoso which is a couple bucks more per stick. Its medium/full bodied rather than the Day & Night’s light medium strength.
Ah..damn. The classic radio on cable is playing the Allman Brothers. Fine, fine, fine.
The caramel becomes butterscotch. The nuttiness is defined by sweet raw cashew, Brazil nuts, and hazelnut.
Nothing like smoking the first cigar of the morning when one’s palate is fresh.
As I near the halfway point, the creaminess is really the star of the show.
But to be perfectly honest, I’ve tasted a gazillion blends just like the Suriel Day & Night. It is not an exceptional blend. A shame.
Smoke time is 35 minutes.
It may just be that the Suriel blends need 6 months to a year of humidor time. Not the one month I gave it.
Meaning that the blending is Old School rather than New Breed.
The burn line is behaving.
The Who’s song “Bargain” is playing. I still remember the first time I met Townshend while mixing the Curved Air Live album at George Martin’s Air Studios in London. Pete was mixing the soundtrack to the movie “Tommy” in Studio 2 next door to us.
He was a good friend of Sonja’s and he sauntered in one late night while Sonja sat at the far end of the booth…sitting on the floor smoking a doob. It was dimly lit and as I saw this man coming towards us, all I could think was he looked familiar.
By the time he was 10 feet away, I made a big gulp. Shit, I thought. He sat on the floor next to Sonja. They hugged and kissed. And Sonja handed him the doobie.
We sat and talked into the wee hours. I wondered what was going on in Studio 2 without him to guide the production but it wasn’t my business.
Back to the Suriel Day & Night. Fruit defines itself into black cherries, raisins, and a touch of red grapes. Sumptuous.
The Suriel Day & Night is a slow roll. While there are some very interesting flavors, they are so subtle, I must squint my eyes while puffing to taste them. Far from being a flavor bomb.
My gut tells me it will be a killer blend with several months of rest. The problem with most manufacturers is that they are convinced their cigars are ready to smoke upon receipt. They say that the cigars have tobacco with several years aging and they are rarin’ to go.
And of course, they’re wrong. Aged or not, they still need their humidor time.
I’ve had more than a few manufacturers get anxious with me because I haven’t reviewed their cigar after I’ve had it a week. Prima donnas.
And then, the blend kicks in. Flavors are sloppy good and are dripping on to the floor.
Complexity finally settles in. The strength stays at medium body.
I’m guessing that if you buy this brand of cigars, you must exhibit patience and just put them in your humidor and forget about them for at least 6 months, or longer.
Construction is going to affect the rating score. The burn line is a real pain in the ass. If I left it alone, it would canoe on me.
All the aforementioned flavors are booming. Big and beautiful.
This cigar is a sweet blend. Full of goodies that remind me of dessert.
The spiciness disappeared long ago..as did the chocolate and coffee. A pie crust element has now entered the arena.
And then a luscious cheese cake component tantalizes my palate. Must be from the over the top creaminess. Definitely cream cheese.
I make a killer sugar free cheese cake. Unfortunately, I can’t find sugar free graham crackers so I used ground up walnuts for the crust. Almost as good.
The cable classic rock station is a real dud this morning. I’m not impressed with the programmer.
LAST THIRD:
Smoke time is 45 minutes.
I have one stick of the Suriel Day & Night remaining. I am going to follow my own advice and let it rest for several months and hope for a big difference.
Finally. The James Gang (Joe Walsh) playing “Walk Away.” 1971.
At this point in humidor aging, the Suriel Day & Night is just an ordinary blend. The very subtle flavors are nice but don’t stand out. Minutes ago, they exploded and now they have returned to the background. An inconsistent blend.
There is only a modicum of nicotine so it’s an easy smoke. Perfect for newbies.
With less than an inch and a half to go, there is no harshness or bitterness. It is smooth and light.
The thread that goes through the entire experience is the creaminess.
The PR describes the Suriel Day & Night as having very rare tobaccos. I don’t think this helped. Again, extensive aging might help.
I’m still having burn issues. I don’t think that Kelner used his best rollers on this cigar.
I believe that without all the touch ups, it might have added an extra 15-20 minutes to the cigar.
ZZ Top is playing “Tush.” I first saw the band in a tiny bar back in 1972. My band’s guitarist had heard of them and suggested we go. There might have been only 5 other people in the bar. Plus, they played late afternoon, not at night.
They looked completely different. In fact, they reminded me of The Association. All three members wore matching 3 piece suits. And they had very short hair and no beards. Mike, my guitarist, was impressed that Billy Gibbons had turned his Marshall amp to the wall and threw a blanket over it. From that moment on, that’s what Mike did.
The Suriel Day & Night dies with a whimper. I had high hopes. But then I noticed there weren’t more than just a few reviews. That’s always a tipoff that something is wrong.
I am conflicted about recommending the Suriel Day & Night. Either a month humidor time is not enough or the cigar is without character.
Final smoke time is 55 minutes.
RATING: 84
And now for something completely different:
1987
I was back home in Long Beach. Drawn and quartered from the traumatic experience of being shit canned from Curved Air over political reasons.
The last straw, from the band’s leaders’ point of view, was that Stewart Copeland and I were being requested for all the radio interviews in each city we played. Darryl was the founding member and had a massive, impenetrable ego. And not a lick of a sense of humor.
Stew and I were like Groucho and Chico. The radio DJ’s loved us. They even ignored our star of the show: Sonja.
Now Stew had no worries about being fired. He was having a hot and heavy affair with Sonja. They lived together and eventually got married. So his position was safe. Not to mention that his last name was Copeland. Miles Copeland was our manager. And Ian Copeland owned the booking agency. Both older brothers to Stew. They were a tight knit group.
Anyway, this infuriated Darryl as the request for Stew and I to do all the interviews was canonized by Miles Copeland, our manager. To make things really worse, print media spoke mostly to Stew and I because we were better copy. We were funny. And the media ate it up. The other members had no idea how to make people laugh.
Plain and simple, Stew and I were smart assess. Sometimes, we got a real humorless interviewer and boy was that a bitch. These guys usually got mad when we didn’t give straight answers. I mean, really mad. We didn’t care. Doing interviews was an unpleasant pain in the ass. We had no idea that Stew and I would be an item. We would have been happy if they just interviewed Darryl and Sonja while we sat on the hotel steps and smoked hash.
So, I got too big for my britches. And I was gone with the help of a lousy album production for RCA. That’s right. I didn’t write the songs. I didn’t arrange them. But it was my fault that the album stunk and someone had to be sacrificed. Perfect set up to get rid of the funny bassist that stole Darryl’s thunder.
Back home, I got a letter from a friend, Butch Hatcher. An American singer that was in the southern rock band, Flatrock. And he was our singer for a short while before Curved Air did a reunion tour; and after seeing the massive, positive result, Darryl got rid of Butch and made Darryl’s new band the new Curved Air. We were then called “Stark Naked and the Car Thieves.”
Butch asked that I deliver a note to Supertramp’s manager who he had an affair with in England. So I called and got an audience.
I was given directions where to go. And it happened to be where Supertramp was renting a house for rehearsal purposes.
The band was holed up in a mansion in Beverly Hills getting ready to record their next album. The living room had been turned into a mini recording studio for their demos.
I arrived and was ushered out to the pool area where the band and the manager were soaking up Southern California rays.
When I was introduced as Curved Air’s bassist, Supertramp members went nuts. Remember, this was 1976. They fawned over me. Took me a week to wash it off. I know it is hard for Americans to fathom the brouhaha over Curved Air. But they were HUGE in Europe. And South America. And Japan. Literally legends in the music business that couldn’t break in this country. I guess we sounded too much like a mix of Jefferson Airplane/It’s a Beautiful Day (“White Bird”).
I spent a glorious afternoon with these wonderful people.
We then spent some time jamming in the living room.
When it was time to go, I stood up, took the Fender P bass off and because of the unusually low ceiling, smashed the head of the bass into that ceiling causing a big crack in the neck.
It was a 1958 P bass. Worth a fortune. I couldn’t believe what I had done. They tried to make me feel like it was nothing and that they had a good luthier who could fix it but I was so embarrassed. I had never broken an instrument in my life.
I left them with my head hung low.
I had been invited to the recording studio to lay some tracks down. For some reason, the call never came. Duh.
I was a real putz.
