Review of Herf Grenade Cigars
Privada Cigar Club Review Series
5th and Final Bundle Review

By: Dr. Mitch Fadem (aka doctoxin)

Size: 6½ x 52 – I’m calling this a Double Corona (traditionally 6½ x 48)
Wrapper: Habana
Binder: Nicaragua
Fillers: It’s a mystery. If I had to guess and do have to guess, I would say Nicaraguan Puro.

Construction

The wrapper is dark but not as dark as most Maduro wrapped cigars. Even with the closed foot, it has a very easy draw. I like closed foot cigars because they light very easily, no toasting required. It is firm but not hard. The wrapper has a few visible veins which do not interfere with the burn, in fact in my opinion these veins help to keep the ash from falling off too soon. The pre-lighting aroma and flavor were a surprise … Oreo cookies… gluten free ones. Yes, they make gluten free Oreo's. They taste similar to the original and they also taste like the Herf Grenade cigars.

Smoking

After lighting the cigar, it took on a rich old-world flavor and aroma. I have used this phrase in previous reviews. This phrase has to do with my childhood and my mom’s large family picnics. All her older cousins were cigar smokers. I was a small boy then and the old men were smoking Cuban cigars, yes it was in the 1950s before President Kennedy signed the embargo. If I think a cigar is very good, it will remind me of real Cuban cigars, back in the day. Okay, back to the review.

I tried to retrohale this cigar, but I usually don’t, I’m not a fan of doing this. That being said, it was a floral and wood aroma without any burn or spice, nice. The ash fell of after 20 minutes just under 2”. The cigar burned slowly, and the longer you smoke, the slower the burn. At 90 minutes, I was just getting to the bottom third. This is a good place to end the review.

Value

The Privada Herf Grenade Bundle is the highest priced bundle at $75 for 20 cigars. That is still only $3.75 a stick and these are good smoking cigars. So, it is a good value and a great cigar to keep in your humidor to impress your cigar smoking friends.

The original review gave this cigar high praise for its construction. Yes, it is a relatively long cigar. If you don’t have enough time to smoke the entire cigar, which has happened to me on a few occasions, you end up throwing away almost half the cigar.

Have you ever tried cutting your cigar in half in a futile effort to save half to smoke later? I say futile effort because once you cut the cigar in the middle, the wrapper usually begins to unravel and you end up with no cigar. It unravels at the point at which you cut it in half. If the wrapper begins to separate, you will never do it again.

I took a chance with the Herf Grenade because it was only a $3.75 cigar. To my surprise both halves remained intact, and I had 2 short Robustos to smoke. How did they smoke? Just as good as the full-length cigar. You can theoretically have 2 cigars instead of 1. If I tried this sooner, the 20 cigar bundle could have become at least a 30 cigar bundle — now each stick costs you $2.50.

This ends up being a greater value. I used a Xikar cutter.