This is the first of three reviews I will post on the Special Craft Series. In case you are not familiar with these Perdomos, they were specially blended to complement craft beers.

For the sungrown I chose a Stone Brewery RuinTen triple IPA. It is recommended for Amber, heavier Lager, IPA and Oktoberfest brews.

Prelight: Earthy aroma with light floral notes, immaculate construction, perfect cut with my Palio. Nice smooth pre-light draw. Looking at the foot of the cigar I counted two or three ligero leaves, so I know it would have plenty of flavor. Also notable is the almost full-coverage band that tells you which beer to pair with the cigar.

First draw had a hint of bitterness which quickly disappeared. Flavors quickly settled into a medium-to-full profile that was quite pleasant. Taking a sip of the beer really opened up my palate and added to the quality of both the smoke and the beer. The pairing was perfect.

The almost white ash held nicely to about 2″ before I tapped it off to keep from getting a lapful. Stayed consistent throught the entire cigar.

The floral hints I detected pre-draw disappeared when I was smoking. There are some light spicy notes that are accentuated if you let the smoke escape through your nose, which is my general habit.

For smoke volume I very highly recommend double- or even triple-clutching (warm-up puffs before taking a deep draw). This adds massive amounts of flavor, and to the cigar’s credit, did not make it smoke hot; in fact, the smoke only became hot as the nub became too hot to hold and I had to put it down in the ashtray.

Throughout the cigar it burned evenly (once very minor wrapper adjustment, probably from double-clutching), and never developed stickiness from tar build-up at the tip.

Depending on how fast you smoke, this cigar will last you one to two hours. Took me about an hour and a half, and I tend to smoke faster than some.

Perdomo set their sights on a cigar to go with the aforementioned beers, and in my opinion, knocked this one clean out of the park. 5/5. Joe Bob says, “Check it Out.”