Wrapper: Habano
Binder: Undisclosed
Filler: Undisclosed
Size: 8 X 45 Corona Larga
Body: Medium
Price: $15.00 MSRP
Humidor Time: 7 Weeks
Number of cigars smoked prior to review: 2
Today we take a look at Caldwell Savages Corona Larga.
Thanks to Jeremy S. for the sticks.
This blend has been out for months and not one single review. Not a good sign. I was sent a couple of 6 x 46 samples and I allowed them 6 weeks humidor time. I couldn’t get any flavor besides hay.
Now I have this telephone pole version which I hope impresses me.
I have reviewed six different Caldwell blends and only one impressed me: Murcias. The rest followed the same path of blah-ness. I don’t get Caldwell. Just like I don’t get Lost & Found (Impromptu). Both brands taste like bundled seconds of Quorum cigars.
But since Jeremy was kind enough to send me this stick, which ain’t cheap by any stretch of the mind, I shall review it and cross my fingers. I love being proven wrong showing what an arrogant ass I am. Something old men truly enjoy.
BACKGROUND:
Factory: Tabacalera William Ventura (Dominican Republic)
Available in 10 count boxes.
According to Anthony’s Cigar Emporium:
“The Caldwell Savages are only available to existing Caldwell accounts and were launched at the 2016 IPCPR Convention last month (July). The entire available allotment of the Caldwell Savages sold out at the convention on day one.
“Robert Caldwell told Cigar Aficionado: “It’s a softer blend than Long Live the King. It features a Habano wrapper, debuting in one size in a 10-count box. The artist (who designed the band artwork) is Pixel Pancho, a major artist out of Italy.”
It seems that Caldwell Cigars no longer has a web site and can only be found on Face Book.
Caldwell chose not to disclose origin of the tobacco.
SIZES & PRICE POINTS:
Corona Extra 6 x 46 $11.00
Super Rothschild 4.75 x 52 $12.00
Toro 6 x 54 $13.00
Piramide 6 x 50 $14.00
Corona Larga 8 x 45 $15.00
DESCRIPTION:
The stick has a nice oily wrapper with quite the toothy feel. The wrapper colors are a rainbow of browns. Seams are tight. Lots of small veins.
The construction is excellent. The Caldwell Savages is fully packed but no hard or soft spots. Just right.
The triple cap has a small pigtail
AROMAS AND COLD DRAW NOTES:
From the shaft, I smell peaches, floral notes, chocolate, espresso, cedar, and vanilla toffee.
From the clipped cap and the foot, I smell barnyard, red pepper, dark chocolate, peaches, floral notes, honey, cedar, and nougat.
The cold draw presents flavors of very dark cacao, sweet malts, fruit, almonds, grass, cedar, and espresso.
That was a nice variety of aromas and tastes.
FIRST THIRD:
Good start….lots of pepper, creaminess, chocolate, malt, nuts, cedar, vanilla, and baking spices.
All right now. C’mon Caldwell. Do your stuff.
Flavors are potent and interesting. No denying this humanoid of what it likes.
I like malts. The Caldwell Savages is chock full of them.
A slightly sweet caramel element jumps aboard.
This is making me hungry as I look at the stick and it reminds me of a Slim Jim.
The 8 x 45 tastes much better than those little squirts…6 x46. Why? No fucking idea.
This baby is flavorful, lots of character building to an eventual crescendo, and complexity not far away.
The char line could stand to be a little more impressive. But then I’ve found tiny ring gauges to always give me trouble.
Transitions keep on keeping on. An array of cosmic notes bounces against the galaxy of my palate like little asteroids. (I gotta stop watching so much Science Channel).
I fully expected a quick smoke but again, ladies and germs, this is a slow roll. 8” shouldn’t take me longer than a couple hours or so. Why does that sound so dirty?
1” has taken me 15 minutes. Let’s do the math…15 minutes x 8 = 120 minutes. Bam. Right on the money.
Really bad burn issue that requires me to torch half an inch of wrapper to stop a canoe.
Sonovthebitch.
Strength is medium.
Time to put on “Joe Bonamassa: Live at the Greek.” He is doing a tribute to The Three Kings: B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King. It is one killer concert. He has the best side man on the planet. Ever see Joe without his iconic shades on? He has bright, bright blue eyes and a baby face. Plus, he has this ancient Gibson Flying V that must be worth a fortune…and he just plays the shit out of it.
Flavors mellow out. Godamm the Pusherman. There is a large sink hole that the flavor profile is descending into.
SECOND THIRD:
Smoke time is 40 minutes.
Flavors perk up. I hope this isn’t another schizo blend like the Espinosa Alpha Dawg was. “Over, Under, Sideways, Down.” Speaking of which, Eric Anderson, my Padron who sent me the Alpha Dawg felt bad. So this is what I wrote back to him:
“Unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot blame yourself. As I said in the review, the PR was used to disguise the fact that it was a sub-par blend. Happens all the time…look at Lost & Found (Impromptu) with all those stupid gimmicks hiding the fact that the sticks are shit…or Caldwell pumping out stupider gimmicks and making crap blends.
“Think of it as a cautionary tale for smokers who hadn’t bought any and may have wanted to when they became available again. You saved an awful lot of readers’ dough. You did a good deed my little cub scout.”
The burn is beginning to really piss me off. I can’t smoke half an inch without putting torch to foot. I should just let the fucker canoe and call it a day.
This is an $15 stick for chrissakes. When did $15 become $3?
Flavors are basically flat. There are subtle notes of cream, pepper, chocolate, malt, and cedar. For $15, I want a BJ from a cheap hooker in Tijuana.
That’s another story for another time.
The 6 x 46 sticks I smoked were not the first of the day and hay was their biggest contribution to the art of smoking. Now I wonder what the 8 x 45 will taste like around the third cigar of the day.
And then another turnabout. Flavors doing their psychotic dance of the Pink Elephants on Parade from “Fantasia.”
I like to allow a couple minutes between puffs. With this skeez, it goes out each time I do that. As the great sage, Tony Montana, said: “You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!”
The transitions are like a blind swimmer doing the breast stroke in an Olympic sized pool.
Very nice. Ooops. Hay. Oh goodie. Oodles of flavor. Oops. Hay…etc.
I could name a list of great cigars, with great construction, all day long that cost less than the Caldwell Savages. This is absolutely the reason there are no reviews 3 months after the cigar was released. So now I’m the idiot.
Jeremy. Do not take this personal, man.
Char line correction 36. Major correction. I can’t take my eyes off this thing.
Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. I’ve been fasting since yesterday. And today as well. And at 2pm, I must start drinking 4 liters of Beelzebub’s solution to turn my rear end into an ass faucet for tomorrow’s colonoscopy. The over 50 man’s worst fear in life. A real test to see if you can survive in prison.
Halfway point. 55 minutes.
A real bummer. Why can’t Caldwell make a decent cigar? How do they stay in business? Are their customer base fellas who want to make the leap from catalog cigars to a brand with cool PR? And weird looking cigar bands?
The last Cigar Aficionado gave Blind Man’s Bluff an 86. Not exactly high praise.
Flavors perk up once again….Cream, malt, black pepper, cedar, nuts, cumin, chocolate, coffee, and the dreaded wood flavor.
Strength hits medium/full with a dose of nicotine.
Now I get a touch of bitterness. Why not?
Oh yuck.
Tastes like cough medicine.
Way to go Caldwell Savages.
On the upside, this is making me forget that my ass faucet begins only 8 hours from now.
The bitterness settles down.
If only the Caldwell Savages was consistent, it might have been a good cigar.
God, I’m only halfway through. This might be more effective than water boarding.
I think I’ve immortalized the cigar way too many times with photos.
LAST THIRD:
Smoke time is one hour 15 minutes. The constant touch ups quicken the pace of the smoke.
Strength approaches full body.
The pepper goes for the gold by making my lips burn.
Flavors are muddled. Nothing distinct hits my palate. Just a mish mosh of undeveloped flavors.
Remember Jeremy…you may have saved other smokers from falling prey to the Caldwell curse. I will send you a check for $15. Or would you rather have it in Green Stamps?
Each time that the Caldwell Savages seems to show some promise, I become elated that a sweet spot is on the horizon. But, in actuality, I am lulled into a false sense of hope and flop sweat forms.
Nicotine is now kicking my arse. Lovely.
“Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me wan’ go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Me say day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan’ go home”
Damn. It is bitter again. Waaaah.
Really bitter. There must be a ton of tar in this cigar.
I’m going to wait a few minutes and if the Caldwell Savages doesn’t improve, I’m putting it down.
Put a fork in me. I’m done.
RATING: 77 (I’m being generous)
And now for something completely different:
On Feb. 11, 1975, the day after my birthday, and the huge LSD fest we had the night before, we had our first gig in London to kick off our tour of the U.K. and the Continent. It was always 6-8 weeks long.
While the band Renaissance had taken the same acid as my bandmates, then had to cancel their opening gig because the boys were still too high, Curved Air went on like troopers.
But we were a bit shaky. Stewart and Sonja, no slouches, took another hit of acid a couple hours before that first gig. The stuff was so good, and so pure, that I was still high 20 hours after I took it. The last thing I needed was more.
Just before going on, Stewart, our drummer, decided to smoke a huge bowl of hash. Well, there were consequences to pay for that. It made the LSD even more intense.
We had the same boring set list every night. No spontaneity whatsoever. I came from a woodshedding background. I loved improvisation. Knowing every second of the 2-1/2 concert got really redundant. But we played two songs that had long improvisations in the middle and I took off like a rocket. Those tunes, “Young Mother” and “Propositions” on the 1974 “Live” album really got me a lot of respect and began the jealousy from the elite band members that caused my downfall.
Throughout the 2 hour set plus 30 minutes of encores, Stew kept doing long extended drum solos. Not only when they were designated, but during the verses and choruses of the songs.
The violinist and guitarist did a lot of trading complex riffs during the instrumental breaks.
Stew would do a Keith Moon through the whole thing and the boys could find “1”. Where was the down beat?
They were completely lost and couldn’t find the beginning of each bar. I saw Darryl, the violinist, give Stew the stink eye plenty.
But Stew was as high as a kite. And just as arrogant as our band leaders even though he was only 22 at the time.
So instead of me playing my normal riffs, I hit quarter notes with the emphasis on 1 being slammed home at each new bar. This allowed the boys to find their way back.
After the gig, in the dressing room, Darryl fired Stew.
This was nothing new.
Stew got fired every week. Yes, the drummer from The Police got fired weekly.
But since Stew and Sonja were a couple, Sonja would quit if Stew got fired. This happened over and over. It got very tiring. Stew was 22 and Sonja was 30. I was 24. I remember seeing an interview with Sonja years ago and guess what? She miraculously went from being 6 years older than me to 4 years younger than me. Vagina vanity.
So having Sonja as his squeeze basically gave Stew carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. A fuck you to the rest of the band.
It was at this concert, that at the end of a song, Stew raised his arms to signify that the song was about to end and then bring his arms down with a flourish on top of the kit, that he totally lost his balance from being so stoned that he fell backwards off the stage.
Most stages were 6 feet or so off the ground. But even farther on the back side.
The roadies always stored the drum cases behind the drum riser. Fortunately for Stew, they broke his fall as he tumbled through them all the way to the floor.
Sonja went running back stage to see if he was alive. He jumped up with large dinner plate sized eyes, and said he was alright…meanwhile, dripping blood from his forearms where he scraped all the skin away from the drum cases.
He jumped back on stage and we finished. The audience, of course, loved it thinking it was part of the show.
The years I was with the band, we never did a gig where we weren’t high on something. I have done acid three times in my life. Once at home at a party. Once while visiting Disneyland…that was a circus…and lastly, my 25th birthday in London. It was perfect LSD not cut with anything and a brilliant experience so I decided to make this my last time as it could never, ever be better, cleaner high than my experience on my birthday bash.
BTW- Stewart got a letter from a college friend at Berkeley and it was written on an 8 x 11 piece of blotter. Each dimed shaped size of letter was a full dose. It was made at the Berkeley chemistry lab. Lots of quality control. Lol
