Friday, October 14, 2011

601 Yellow La Bomba Atom Review

Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano
Filler: Nicaraguan Ligero
Price: $8.00

Last week I went to a cigar shop in Philadelphia that I had never been to before. The shop is Twin Smoke Shoppe in South Philadelphia. When I walked into this store, I was blown away by the massive selection of cigars. As I was talking to the owner, he pointed me towards this stick. I have had other 601 cigars before, but never this particular one. He told me that it was powerful. So I smoked one while I was there and brought the other one home to save for this review.

The dark brown Habano wrapper is flawless. This cigar also looks very interesting. It has a wick off of the cap so that the cigar actually looks like a stick of dynamite. The aroma coming off of this cigar is very spicy and actually tingles the nose before it is even lit. This is a solid stick that I can tell is constructed very well.

Upon lighting this cigar, I was blown away. The strong pepper spice sends your taste buds for a loop. Then the smoke becomes a little smoother when a woody flavor enters. The wood could best be described as a charred cedar. It had just the slightest bit of sweetness to it. There are quite a bit of earthy tones that come into play as well. As the first third comes to a close, a mild leather flavor builds on the palate.

The second third mellows out a bit. The spice dulls down, but the wood and earthy flavors pick up. The leather flavor becomes very strong around the halfway point. The leather is met with a slight bitter coffee flavor that counteracted a little bit of the spice that was still there.

The last couple inches of this cigar were a little more powerful than the first third. The pepper flavor was very strong. The wood notes also became stronger, which was good because it made the pepper less harsh. The finish was very strong, but loaded with flavor.

The ash on this stick was a medium shade of gray, and nicely layered. The ash would hold on for about two inches at a time. The burn was perfectly even throughout. The draw was also flawless. The smoke was very thick and darker gray. The nice smoke gave off a very spicy aroma.

If you like powerhouse cigars, try this one. It starts off full bodied, then mellows out in the middle, then finishes with a super-full body. The flavor was also very good. Whenever the spice got very strong, there was another flavor that would slightly counter it. So the spice never got overbearing. I give this cigar a 8.25 out of 10.

Enjoy,

Zack the Stogie Man

3 comments:

  1. I smoked my first 601 la Bomba today. What a pleasure to behold! Started very strong and great flavor to the nose. Relaxing smoke in the middle, but still very stout. The finish left me wanting to light up another, but I will wait for another day. Great character, bold flavors, not for the faint of heart.

    ReplyDelete
  2. From what I've heard, they're not making anymore of these. I tried a few puffs of this when a friend of mine was smoking one. I think he got a dud b/c it was not that good. But what the hell, I've got to try one for myself!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really like the design on this one. I'm always partial to variety in appearance (multi-colored wrapper, foot bands, etc) and the long tail as the 'wick' to the dynamite is a great touch.

    ReplyDelete