Courtesy K. Hansotia, here is yet another mystery, this time from his Gurkha department. I received this in a "pay it forward" trade, and haven't quite decided what species it belongs to. I have scoured the internet and pored over the Gurkha site with much frustration in an attempt to identify this cigar.

The Gurkha website is not much help because there are incorrect pictures posted. The picture for the Master's Choice is of the Expedition cigar. My best guess is that my cigar is in fact a Master's Select, though the picture on the website shows the Select without a cedar sleeve. Maybe someone out there can set me straight on this one.

Obviously this review is based on one lonely smoke, so I can't judge it as far as consistency. What I can tell you is that it's a rich reddish maduro in color with a great prelight scent of leather and earth.

The draw and burn are both excellent. At first light this cigar is quite similar to the Signature 101, but after an inch or so it shows a slightly different personality. The foundation flavor is an earthy char, complemented with cedar and just a touch of spice. The smoke is creamy and abundant– a great one for smoke rings if that's your thing. I'd rate the body of this cigar at a beefy medium, verging on full. The ash is well formed and perfectly white.

The aftertaste is quite earthy, a bit too much for my taste actually. I had the same problem with the Signature 101 — these are both great cigars with lots of body and flavor, but the aftertaste is just a little too funky for me. Maybe an appropriate beverage could lend an assist with this, but I'm not sure what that would be. What goes with funk?

My final thought is that this can't be the Master's Choice, which is described as mild to medium in body. So I'm going to go with the Master's Select Double Corona, which is billed at 6 x 52. But really, who knows… and who cares? It was a fine smoke to wile away a hot desert evening.