UK Supermarket Cigars: Review 6 - Castella Classic

[kevie49]

One of the better known cigars and, along with Hamlet, was an ever present on the British TV adverts in the 70s and 80s with a variety of celebrities including David Jason, Russ Abbott and Des O'Connor.

I purchased a single for £1.10 in the local newsagents. The cigar has a 28 ring gauge and is 4" in length. It comes wrapped in a white plastic wrapper with the Castella logo.





As it is one of the older, established cigars in the UK, I thought that I'd go the whole hog and pair this with beer that was popular in the 70-80s: Younger's Tartan Special.


From the first draw it is clear that there is a lot of air in the Cigar, it is burning incredibly quickly. Not any real noteworthy tastes: the tobacco is very mild, a bit woody. Creamy mouth-feel, but a slight bitterness in the aftertaste from the very start.


Quite an uneven burn, but given the size and the amount of air in the stick, this cigar seems to be reasonably well at holding the ash.


I attempted to slow down the smoke to increase the time and, hopefully, reduce the chance if that bitterness getting worse. But I ended up having to relight it in the first third. I straightened out the burn, but within 2 minutes it was really uneven again.


Half way down, 8 minutes of smoking, the taste has turned quite leathery and the bitterness has increased. The smoke in the mouth went from creamy to quite unpleasant and slightly harsh.



It went out again just after the half way point, but this time I decided against relighting it as the experience was not enjoyable at all.



The question I have to ask is how has a cigar this bad lasted as long on the market? Not quite as bad as the Villiger Export Maduro, but it's not far off it: avoid.