Skull 77 El Nino Cigar: Small but mighty

I am a notoriously slow smoker and always take smoke times with a big pinch of salt. The Skull 77 El Nino cigar has a quoted smoke time of 20 to 45 minutes. When I picked this cigar up to smoke it, I thought to myself “It will probably take me about 60 to 70 minutes”. Two full, and very pleasurable, hours later I finally laid this cigar to rest in my ashtray. It wasn’t until I started writing this review that I realised that it me a full thirty minutes longer to smoke this little powerhouse than it took me to smoke it’s bigger brother the Skull 77 El Unico!

When I slipped the Skull 77 El Nino out of its cellophane wrapper I was greeted by beautiful aromas of coffee, bay leaf and warm hay. It had a good even squeeze from head to foot and left a lovely olive oil feeling on both my fingers and lips. The cold draw was reminiscent of creamy rice pudding.

The opening salvo for this cigar was full flavoured coffee with a subtle hint of mint. From the get-go the smoke itself was rich, thick and creamy. I had great fun watching the tendrils dancing around as I blew out the sumptuous plumes of smoke.

Towards the middle of the Skull 77 El Nino, the creaminess was joined by a subtle flavour of bacon with a beautiful underlying note of saltiness. By this time I had a perfectly formed ball of ash a little over an inch long sitting neatly in my ashtray. The perfect burn and construction continued throughout the cigar.

My choice of drink to pair with this beautiful smoke was a Caipiroska. The combination of sweet lime and vodka were the perfect counterpoint to the rich dark chocolate notes that were present in the cigar.

As I finally reached the last third of the Skull 77 El Nino, a strong woody tone came to the fore, partnered with a rich and creamy tobacco flavour. I know that this might sound a little obvious, but this was reminiscent of the sweet tobacco aroma that hits you when you walk into a humidor. Once again a hint of mint joined the flavour party, but as I smoked the cigar right down to its final millimetres a smooth dark chocolate became the predominant flavour.

Maybe I spend a bit too long pontificating about my cigars whilst I’m smoking them, but when they are this good there is no such thing as taking too long, especially when you are only left with three millimetres by the end! What I will also add is that at no point did this little cigar burn out despite the greatly extended smoking time.

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Skull 77 El Nino Cigar Details