Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut | Cigar Review

Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 6.5 x 30 x 50 x 19 ‘Ranflactic- Salomon”
Body: Medium/Full
Price: $13.00 MSRP Most online stores sell them for a buck or so less.

Today we take a look at the new Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut.
Thank you to Charles Lim for the sticks.

I measured my Ranflactic and it breaks the 5.5” length by another inch. It is 6.5” long, not 5-1/2”.
Apparently, the initial press release from Room 101 said the Ranflactic was 5-1/2” long. And several reviewers actually printed this despite having a 6-1/2” long cigar in their hands. So there was a disconnect between the press release and the release of the cigar. Even some of the Room 101 artwork shows the cigar as 5-1/2” long. I’m surprised that the reviewers that got their hands on the cigars before the Room 101 info was corrected didn’t bother to measure the cigar. What do they call that? Oh that’s right…Sheep.

BACKGROUND:
Debuted at 2015 IPCPR trade show.
Room101 is distributed by Davidoff of Geneva USA.
Factory: Agroindustria LAEPE S.A
Limited production cigar with a total of 3,500 boxes.

From the Cigar Aficionado web site:
“Room101 is gearing up to launch its new Johnny Tobacconaut, a cosmic-themed line that should make its retail landing in late September. The brand consists of three figurados blended exclusively with Nicaraguan tobacco. Only 3,500 boxes are being produced.

“I felt the Johnny Tobacconaut concept both represents the Room101 philosophy and helps to identify this product series as something intrinsically Room101 on the shelf,” said Matt Booth, owner of Room101, a company known for its nonconformist approach to branding.

“The boxes, which contain 20 cigars each, depict brand mascot Johnny Tobacconaut, the shovel-wielding astronaut, marching through the galaxy in a space suit with a backpack full of tobacco. Booth, who created the character, describes him as “the intergalactic Johnny Tobaccoseed.”

“Booth won’t get too specific about the details of the blend, but told Cigar Aficionado: “The official announcement was that Johnny Tobacconaut’s blend composition is that of 100 percent Nicaraguan ‘Funk.’ I would personally like to stick to that.”

“He did reveal, however, that Johnny Tobacconaut was produced at the Davidoff facilities in Danlí, Honduras (AgroIndustrias Laepe S.A.), where the majority of Room101 cigars are made. Room101 is distributed by Davidoff of Geneva.

“As of now, Johnny Tobacconaut remains a limited release, but—depending on how the cigars are received—Booth will consider making them a permanent fixture in the Room101 portfolio.
“This is a limited edition as it currently stands. If it is a grand slam success, I will consider re-introducing ‘Johnny T’ in a different form later on down the road.”

DESCRIPTION:
A beautiful Salomon. Construction is impeccable. The wrapper seems to have a copper tint or just reflects the cigar band. I really can’t tell. It is also oily and a caramel/russet brown color. Seams are invisible. Huge Arnold Schwarzenegger veins. The triple cap is perfect with a tiny nipple atop it.
The cigar is fairly solid but has several soft spots.
The cigar band is classy with a black background, copper trim and copper lettering. I like it.

SIZES AND PRICING:
Fileroid: 4.5 x 52 x 45 $12.00 MSRP
Ranflactic: 6.5 x 30 x 50 x 19 $13.00
Chingonova: 8 x 60 x 44 $14.00 MSRP

AROMAS AND COLD DRAW NOTES:
From the shaft, I smell orange citrus sweetness, floral notes, spice, and cinnamon.
From the clipped cap (I generally use a V-Cut guillotine cutter on small Salomon type caps) and the foot, I smell dark chocolate, spice, sweetness, coffee, cinnamon, nuts, and orange citrus.
The cold draw presents flavors of orange zest, clove, chocolate, spice, and green vegetal notes.

FIRST THIRD:
The draw is perfect spewing loads of smoke into the room despite the tiny foot.
Flavors are good. Ummm. Flavor good. Me want woman.

Here they are: Sweetness, clove, graham cracker, milk chocolate, orange zest, caramel, cedar, and some flavors that elude me due to their subtlety. I’ll get them.

Charlotte goes to work. The cable TV classic radio network goes on. I crank the speakers. And there is Rod Stewart singing “Hot Legs.” I’ve got a great story for the end of the review. I published it once a couple years ago. You’ll dig it.
And then it’s followed by Jimi playing “Castles Made of Sand.”

One thing I don’t like about ¼” foot openings. The always require a touch up about half an inch in. They just never burn right from the start. But I’ve corrected it and laid it down to rest to cool off.
I’ve reviewed 13 Room 101 cigars. To be honest, I’m hot or cold about Matt Booth’s blends. Some are great and some are just so so. I still think my favorite is the Room 101 Serie SA (San Andrés).

Like a light switch being flipped, at 1-1/4” burned, your stereotypical Nic puro flavors kick in big time: Chocolate, red pepper, creaminess, coffee, sweetness, lots of malt, clove, black cherry, raisins, cedar, orange citrus, graham cracker, and big dollop of caramel. Nice.

The char line continues to be wavy. Normally, I’d leave it alone but for a review, I like a pretty photo.
Strength is medium body.

So far, this doesn’t warrant a $13.00 price tag…not even close. The La Flor Dominicana Coronado at $8.00 was better. The HVC Black Friday at less than $6 is better. And the Vivalo Serie Exclusivo Robusto Grande at almost $9.00 was three times as good.

Granted, I haven’t begun the second third, but at $13 the Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut should have come out of the gate screaming like a banshee. So it looks like another overpriced cigar that doesn’t come to life til the last third bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong. The Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut is a very pleasant tasting cigar. But don’t play us for fools Mr. Booth. The Comic-Con baloney filled presentation doesn’t enhance the flavors.

SECOND THIRD:
Smoke time is 35 minutes.
Some complexity begins to show itself. The spiciness returns. And the rest of the flavor profile finds its place in the universe as they begin to expand exponentially.

Still, I should be finding myself being overwhelmed by flavor points. A real shame. I was really pulling for Booth on this one. But it seems to be falling into the category of most of his blends: So So.

I had the same problems with the Room 101 Master Collection Two, Room 101 The Big Payback, Room 101 LTD Namakubi Edition, and the Room 101 Conjura Limited. It seems I had the best time with the value priced Room 101 blends. They were great.

Cracks form right above the foot. They are exactly where the monstrous veins are. So the veins are the point of least resistance on the Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut.
I check some of the reviewers I really respect. And they aren’t crazy about this cigar either. Giving the cigar some low ratings. And they didn’t taste as much as I do.

Bottom line, it just ain’t a great cigar as the price assumes it should be. Or the fact that it is a limited edition. In fact, one reviewer makes the rationalization for the price because it is a limited edition. To me, a limited edition should make the cigar blend a true winner. Not an excuse for it being ordinary.
The big vein is actually splitting.

I keep all my cigars for review in a separate humidor with an electronic humidifier. I keep it at 67% and it never varies. That’s the beauty of the electronic humidifiers.

So it seems that instead of focusing on what a wonderful cigar the Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut is, I’m going on a tangent on construction.
If I’m lucky, I will burn through the cracks without substantial issues.

When I went back to peruse the 13 reviews of Room 101 cigars, I found the same problem over and over. So I ain’t taking the blame for what is happening.
All of my recent reviews had no such problems and they were all in the same humidor.

I’m tempted to break open the other stick that Charles sent me and lighting it up and ditching this one. But I’m not going to go through all that mishegos.

I reach the halfway point. Smoke time is a verblunget 45 minutes. It is nearly impossible to keep track of the time with all the problems.

The flavor profile has flattened out. If this were a blind taste test, I’d be rating this cigar an 80 and that’s being kind.

Stogie Guys, who do a good job at minimizing the bullshit, unlike me, give the cigar 2-1/2 stars out of 5. That means a rating of 50! Whoa Nelly. I’m with you brother Patrick.

The foot now looks like a joke cigar where the foot explodes.

It seems the only redeeming point of this review will be my drug story at the end of the review. I thought twice about wasting it on this cigar but what the hell.
I betcha a dollar that in the last third, all the flavors explode. Wanna bet?

I do my best to correct the foot. I allow it to rest for a bit.
And naturally, there is too much glue on the cigar band. LOL!

Oh look at that. The copper colored trim around the top and bottom of the cigar band is actually a secondary all copper colored band underneath the main band.
This has been one of the most disastrous reviews I’ve written in ages.

LAST THIRD:
Smoke time is one hour 5 minutes.
I knew it. I fucking knew it.
The Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut explodes with flavor.

Great song playing: “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel. I remember reading that Gabriel used my old buddy Stewart Copeland to play drums. But during the mix, he took out all the drums except for Copeland’s snare drum. I read that it made Stew furious. LOL.

The entire flavor profile returns: Chocolate, red pepper, creaminess, coffee, sweetness, lots of malt, clove, black cherry, raisins, cedar, orange citrus, graham cracker, and caramel.
Strength is medium/full.

It is now smoking like a $13 cigar. Too little, too late Bugs Bunny.

The char line still doesn’t cooperate but at least there aren’t major cracks.
This mimics almost every expensive cigar that Room 101 put out.

This is why you see a lot of Room 101 blends hitting the Clearance Sections on a lot of online stores. Even the limited editions. And for half the price.
I have to pick a really good cigar to review tomorrow. I don’t like to trash anyone’s work. But if I don’t tell you the truth, who will?

Even the reviewers who get free samples from Matt Booth didn’t score the cigar very high. And they probably got a semi-decent rating only to keep their relationship with Booth untouched.
I don’t get it. Doesn’t Booth have anyone but “Yes Men” around him? No one to tell him the cigar needs more work before releasing it?

The quote from Booth’s camp: “The official announcement was that Johnny Tobacconaut’s blend composition is that of 100 percent Nicaraguan ‘Funk.’” is on target. It is almost as if he is admitting he used shit tobacco for this blend.

Do not buy this cigar. If it were a $9 cigar, I would say go ahead and give it a try. I may have gotten a clunker. But it seems other reviewers back me up on my experience with the Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut. No one mentions it fell apart on them. But who knows?
The cigar ends full bodied.
Final smoke time is one hour 20 minutes.

RATING: 75

And now for something completely different:
It was 1984.

Everyone I knew was doing coke. This was the heyday of cocaine use. The early 80’s. It was everywhere. The movie, “Blow” was right on.
I knew a lot of people because of my recording studio, etc. Everyone had a vial of coke on them at all times.

One of my close friends had this friend named Allan who had 3 little girls. We were deep into the Eddie Munster project. So I always remembered to invite him and his girls to any PR thing we did where we got George Barris to loan us the Munster Koach or some other Munstermobile. And when Eddie and the Monsters were in full makeup.

But Allan wasn’t very bright. He would always return my call when I wanted to let him know about an upcoming PR event. This is exactly how it started every time:
Allan: “Hello.”
Phil: “Hi Allan.”
Allan: “This is..er..Allan.”

He had made money in property but refused to move out of the ghetto in the City of Bell.
As his money grew, he kept adding on to his house until it was ridiculous. It looked like a mansion amongst very old and grungy houses on the block.

Well, something terrible happened.

One night, they had a home invasion. Two guys with guns.
They forced Allan and his wife into the bedroom where Allan had a safe and told him to open it.
And this part gives me the chills. His wife (I can’t remember her name) was about to open the safe when Allan said, “Don’t bother. They are going to kill me.”

And just like that. They did. One shotgun blast to the mid-section and Allan was dead.

The wife ran for it but one of the guys found a baseball bat and beat the shit out of her aiming primarily at her head.
They left the house without getting a single dime or drugs.

This shocked the hell out of our community. No one had a clue. We knew that Allan sold coke in small quantities to his friends. But how could this happen?

It took over a week before the funeral happened. They waited for the wife to get out of the hospital.
She showed up all banged up with bandages covering her head. And her three girls in shock. She was also sky high on pain killers.

During the service, the pastor gave a very nice eulogy. And then he said that his family wanted to play two of Allan’s favorite songs.

There was a boom box on the floor. One of Allan’s brothers went up on the stage and turned it on.
The first song was an Elvis spiritual song. Very appropriate.

The next song made the pastor run from the stage.
Yep. Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs.” The 7 minute live version.
Everyone was very uncomfortable. This was beyond absurdity.

At the cemetery, we all stood in observance as the pastor spoke.

We stood in line to place a flower on Allan’s coffin. And then you moved on to where the wife sat and gave her your condolences. I told her if there was anything I could do…And she winked at me with a smile. Oh shit. She was hitting on me at her husband’s funeral.

There were two plain clothes cops taking pictures of everyone there. We all did drugs and were scared shitless. We all put our shades on and looked at our shoes.

As it turned out, they caught the guys while the service was going on.

They had been hired by Allan’s housekeeper. All three were arrested that day and charged with first degree murder.

I saw the wife once more at my friend Marshall’s home. She was a zombie. Her kids were out of control and hung on her like baby chimps pulling her hair and screaming like crazies. It really freaked me out.
Everyone I knew was relieved the bad guys were caught. Coke makes you paranoid. And we all thought we were suspects even though we had nothing to do with this heinous crime.

I shall never forget this. With my terrible Alzheimer’s killing my brain and not being able to remember my wife’s name sometimes, I remember this from 30 years ago.