A while back I reviewed the White Label in this series from Camacho. Since then a few more legends have been added to the line– Orange (Rocky Patel), Purple (Graycliff) and Black (La Aurora). This is one of the original four, the Blue Label from Matasa, maker of Fonseca and Cubita.

Manuel Quesada, along with his brother Alvaro and father Manuel Sr., started the Manufactura de Tabacos S.A. (MATASA) factory in Santiago, D.R. in 1974. It was one of the first cigar factories established in the Dominican Republic– started, as Quesada said in an interview with Cigar Aficionado, with "one hundred dollars, a chair, and a phone."

Starting with the Fonseca and Sosa brands, MATASA grew to "Legendary" status, at least according to Cigars International who sponsors and distributes this series. Which brings me to tonight's smoke.

Like all of the Legends Series cigars, this is a toro size at 5 5/8 x 54. The first thing I recommend you do with this cigar is to carefully take off the label. The Ecuadorian wrapper on this baby is an oily delight, and the label is, well, a little large and garish for my taste. Best to smoke this one naked. The cigar, that is. (Unless you have very free spirited neighbors, in which case I don't want to live in your neighborhood.)

It's a tightly rolled stick with no soft spots, and examining the foot I noticed right in the center a perfectly black leaf that contrasts with the rest of the blend. The draw is firm, but not difficult. It lights easily and burns well, if somewhat unevenly. The first taste is of light wood, with something like coconut. That's sounds crazy, and maybe it is. But that's the information from Olfactory Central. The Camacho Legend tasted slightly of vanilla…now coconut? It's not like smoking a macaroon. I haven't completely lost my marbles. But there's definitely an usual flavor there…

It's a mild to medium smoke without too much complexity. Toward the end it takes on a little graphite, and it starts to burn a bit hot, but the enticing aroma stays to the end. This is one of those cigars that I enjoy more for the aroma than the taste, though there was nothing objectionable about the taste; it's just a little milder than my usual fare.

Now I'm going to have to pick up some Fonsecas, just to compare. The Legends Series Blue has me interested in what MATASA is up to…

This handsome cigar can be seen delicately balanced between the finely manicured fingers of only the most genteel gentlemen in the pages of Cigar Aficionado. Because, as the ad says, “White goes with everything.” If that’s so, why is the gent wearing a white suit? Lack of imagination?

I decided to test this sartorial statement by wearing only my finest dungarees and a stained t-shirt and taking this toro into the backyard for a test drive. It’s certainly a pretty cigar– the Connecticut shade wrapper is nearly perfect, silky smooth and sporting a perfectly integrated cap. A real looker.

Inside this expensive Connecticut suit is a Nicaraguan binder and a Nicaraguan/Dominican filler. It’s a rather fat toro with a 54 ring gauge. It’s billed as being heavier bodied than the “classic” Montecristo, but I had to test it for myself after reading one review that called it “mild to medium” and another that said it was “medium to full.”

The Montecristo White is a finely constructed mild cigar. I don’t remember who said it was “medium to full” but that is, I must say, flat wrong. It fires up with classic Connecticut Shade flavors of nuts and kitchen spices, ginger maybe, and flattens out into a nice toasty mild smoke. Enjoyable, but definitely a morning or afternoon smoke.

At 8 to 10 USD I probably won’t be buying any more of these, but I don’t really have any complaints about it either. On the other hand, there are more flavorful mild smokes out there for far less– the Gispert natural and the Felipe Dominicana come to mind. Even the brilliant Romeo y Julieta Vintage line, while still pricey, has more to offer… Which doesn’t mean the Monte White is a bad cigar at all. If you favor mild cigars and have a liberal tobacco budget, this is definitely one to try.

There's a sign in a cigar shop window in downtown Las Vegas that screams "Legal Cubans!" (If you're an American then this is meant to generate astonishment that Cuban cigars might be sold in a civilized manner.) I pass this sign almost everyday on my daily sojourn to work in downtown Las Vegas, but I've always passed on the cigars as well, until one day I noticed the "Legal Cubans" were all gone. (These were the Pinar brand.) Still the sign remains, in the hopes that the seemingly endless last crop of 1959 will spawn yet another source.

I'm reminded of the passage in Stanford Newman's Cigar Family where he talks about the single bale of 1959 Cuban tobacco he kept in his factory's storage so that in spite of the embargo he could say "Yes, we still have Havana." Bits and pieces of the final 1959 crop seem to be miraculously discovered on a frequent basis, as if bales of tobacco were like antique heirlooms your aunt might forget about in the attic.

But on the subject of the Cuban embargo I'm with Kinky Friedman : we're not supporting their economy; we're burning their fields. But Kinky ain't governor of Texas yet, let alone President. And W's got many many bigger problems at the moment, so I think we're going to be stuck with "Legal Cubans" for a while yet.

This one is from M&R. Never heard of it? Well, you would have if you were a roll yer own cigarette kind of feller. As far as I know they're not big in the cigar business, except when they come across one of those magic bales of pre-embargo tobacco. But I speak too soon: Cigarcylopedia shows they make two other brands– a Dominican puro and a Brazilian puro, both sold in "economical bundles". But I can't say I've ever laid eyes on either one.

Officially, this is the M&R Pre-Embargo Limited Edition Churchill. Made in Santiago, Dominican Republic, with a Brazilian wrapper, Indonesian binder, and Dominican filler. Oh, wait– Cuban, I almost forgot, Cuban filler as well. The exact proportion of Dominican to Cuban tobacco is not known. This is evidently a proprietary secret. I picked this one up at my local tribal smokeshop on a whim. I had planned on reviewing this for April Fool's Day but forgot about it.

It comes in a flimsy plastic tube, and upon opening it there's a smell that reminds me of nothing more than air let out of an old tire. Not a good omen, I'm afraid. It's lumpy and bumpy and it looks like someone got busy with the Elmer's when they wrapped it.

But much to my surprise, this is a smooth and tasty smoke. With really good construction to boot. I can't believe a cigar that quite honestly looks like something my dog would leave in the back yard smoked this well, but it did. It didn't blow my socks off, but it definitely blew my expectations out of the water.

The flavor profile is woody, veering towards earthy, with a light spice, and the smoke is very smooth, almost creamy. It peters out at the half way point, but stays pleasant to the end. The wrapper is a bit sticky and slightly bitter, but the flavor of the cigar makes up for that. I'd qualify this as a really decent bundle smoke, Cuban or no. With better presentation and a flashy band this cigar could probably pass for premium. No kidding. What a surprise!

This is a fat robusto from Padron; with a ring gauge of 56 it’s a mouthful. The wrapper is rough and the cap especially so. As much as I hate to say anything negative about a Padron, I have to admit that it’s not an attractive cigar. Prelight it has a definite barnyard aroma, more so on the foot than the wrapper; a harbinger of things to come…

The draw on this one is very loose, but at the same time the burn is very slow. After each puff tendrils of smoke waft from the head of the cigar. There’s a huge volume of flavorful smoke from the first draw to the last.

It’s a very well balanced cigar. It starts up with a slight bite and lots of pepper. Soon it drops down a notch and presents a woody profile, with cedar in the spotlight. This is what I love about Padron cigars– they always make me think of the first days of fall when the folks around here start using their fireplaces. Juniper seems to be the log of choice, and while this Padron tends more toward cedar, it’s so aromatic that it could almost be juniper. It smells like a humidor on fire… though that isn’t such a pleasant image, I agree.

After well over an hour I had burned this to the band with only two taps of the ash. There’s a good nicotine kick with this stick, so I had to let it go at that point. But on a different day after a bigger meal I would have probably nubbed it.

The standard Padron series, of which this is one, has been called “a good everyday cigar.” I would go further than that– it’s a great everyday cigar. Maybe not as profound or complex as the Anniversary series, but a well balanced tasty smoke that’s better than most of the Altadis cigars I’ve sampled in the past couple of months. At 5 or 6 USD it’s a little pricier than my average “everyday” cigar, but it’s worth the extra couple bucks.

This rather sad looking fish of a cigar is a Mexican puro from Altadis called Te Amo. Frequently cigars sporting the Te Amo band can be seen hanging precariously from the lips of large men chasing a small white ball around well tended lawns. At least that's what I see in the cigar ads. Maybe they taste better with golf, or maybe they're better tolerated when accompanied by a frustrating distraction.

Te Amo has been around for eons, or at least since the mid-60's, and has a dedicated following. Many Te Amo vitolas have been rolled and marketed over the years, but many of them have also been retired, and this is one of them. Figurados are difficult to roll, and this is an unusual one– it's tapered at both ends, like the cigars those fat cats in political cartoons from the early 20th century are seen smoking.

This one is a little lopsided, and the wrapper is dry and papery. Made in San Andres Tuxtla, measuring 6 5/8 x 50, it smells a bit like wet cardboard. Not particularly appetizing, but it didn't keep me from lighting it up.

Despite the name ("I Love You" en español) a lot of people don't care for this brand; at the same time a lot of people swear by it. It's a love it or hate it kind of cigar. Based on previous experience I didn't expect to like this cigar, but the first half is actually not bad.

It lit up easily and the construction was good. It burns a little hot, but evenly despite the occasional gust of wind on the back nine. (That would be the nine holes dug by my squirrel terrier in the back yard.) The bittersweet taste that is the Te Amo trademark was muted at first, much to my approval. Up to the mid-point I was about to change my mind about Te Amo.

But then the classic Te Amo arose and turned from bittersweet chocolate to acrid; the astringency that is typical of this brand turned on the nasty and I couldn't get past the two thirds mark. The shape of this cigar probably accelerated this effect — as the gauge decreases the flavor becomes concentrated, and in this case that isn't a good thing.

I've never been a fan of Te Amo, and I guess I never will be, especially of the figurado now that its passing has been marked. But I have to admit I sort of liked the first half of this cigar. Resquiat in Pacem.

The 5 Vegas brand (supposedly pronounced “Cinco Vegas”) has an interesting history even though it hasn’t been around very long. It was created in the boom years by World Cigars, Inc., and produced by Kiki Berger in Esteli, Nicaragua. The name evidently came from a story about 5 tobacco growers who came together to produce a single blend.

But like many of the Boom cigars it did not survive into the 21st century. Like Cupido, another of Berger’s blends I was fond of, 5 Vegas was eventually closed out. Keith Meier of Cigars International bought up the rest of the 5 Vegas inventory and scooped up the trademark while he was at it.

Today it is one of CI’s best selling brands, and the full bodied “Series A” line is getting a lot of attention. The old Nicaraguans are now gone, and I hear the new ones are now made by Nestor Plasencia in Honduras.

The information from CI is that this is a three-country blend, though it does not say which three countries, with the exception of the wrapper which is a Costa Rican maduro. It goes on to say that the tobaccos are aged for four years, and the cigars are aged six months further after they are rolled. They are then dressed up nicely in gold and black bands and wrapped in a sheath of cedar.

The various sizes in the Series “A” line are given names beginning with the letter A, as if they were children in a cute little family. The petite corona is called “Anomaly,” as if there were something abnormal about this particular child. Aside from the fact that it is a bit runty at 4 1/2 x 44, this anomaly is just abnormally rich and tasty. This kid may be small, but he’s feisty.

There’s a whole lot of nose-tingling spice in this little corona. It starts up fairly mellow with a rich full flavor– Costa Rican maduro is tough to beat — but soon the spice takes over and really makes a move. It does get a bit harsh toward the end and it has a fairly short finish at 25 minutes into the smoke. But at this point I must say I was thoroughly satisfied. Good construction and a great price at less than 3 USD makes this a must try. Maduro fans take note!