Ok, sorry it took me this long to post my reviews, but this was a LONG weekend at work. I will review in the order that I smoked the cigars.

Cigar #2

This stick is about 5 inches long and about a 48 ring gauge I would guess. The wrapper is very light in color. The "squeeze" on this stick is a little softer than I have seen before. I automatically assume that the draw on this is going to be very loose. I was correct. I used my favorite puch on both of these smokes just to be fair. The pre-light draw was, indeed, loose but kind of flavorful. It lit and burned fine. The taste started off pretty rough, but got better shortly after. Now I have to say that I was not over impressed with this smoke. It was too loose and did go out about 30% through it. I would like to say I got to finish it and give it a fair review. However, as usual, life (or more specifically, work) got in the way. My job requires me to be on-call at times. This weekend was one of those times. I got an onslaught of calls suddenly while I am trying to enjoy my smoke. It got so bad that I got frustrated and called it quits after about 50-55%. I really hope this is not the better of the two cigars that just got ruined.

Cigar #1

This stick is 6 inches long and about the same ring gauge as the first one. The wrapper is darker and tighter than the first. The "squeeze" was much tougher than the first, it was down right stiff. Not hard, but stiff. Pre-light draw was tough but very tasty. Lighting was easy but drawing was tough right from the very beginning. Also, the burn was even down the length of but I swear it burned primarily at the center of the cigar. It did not burn evenly across the foot. This was somewhat annoying, but the taste was good enough that I wanted to continue. The draw did improve a bit shortly into the smoke, but then just got worse. Smoking this thing was a real chore. It went out a couple of times within the 90 minutes I smoked on it. Finally, I surrendered around 3/4 through the cigar. I have never had one this tough before, so I guess this is what is called a plug.

Well, as tough a time I had with these reviews, I am still going to take a stab at picking the more expensive of the two. But for the plug, my choice would easily be Cigar #1. I am aware that this can happen at random with even some (usually) really good cigars. So, my choice is still going to be Cigar #1.

Either way, thanks for the chance to participate in this again. And thank you for the stow-aways that you sent. That was rather kind of you.