I think I can speak for the majority when I say that these days, clowns are just flat out creepy. They perhaps at one time had their moment in the limelight as being fun entertainers, but that era is long past. Many of us see a clown now and instantly assume it's Pennywise, or at least someone with John Wayne Gacy-style intents. The grandpappy of clowns is the harlequin, sometimes spelled as arlequin. The goofy court jesters with their funny hats and diamond patterned body suits are clearly the OG of clowns. There is although in my opinion an arlequin that continues to stand the test of time and that is Joker, from the world of Batman. His contagious laughter never gets old. Just ask Hollywood. Today though we're going to look at a different kind of joker and that's the Arlequin Corona Gorda from Fratello Cigars. Will I be entertained or be bored with its antics? Let's juggle the flame over the foot and see.
The Deets
Cigar: Fratello Arlequin Corona Gorda
Origin: Nicaragua
Factory: Fábrica de Tabacos Joya de Nicaragua
Size: 5.5 x 48
Wrapper: Mexican San Andres
Binder: Ecuadorian Habano
Filler: Nicaragua, Peru
Appearance 8.5/10
Holding this cigar I can tell immediately that it's light and underfilled. Getting past that though, it does have a somewhat toothy wrapper with decent seams. The cap is clean, but I would have liked to see more as it was a little shallow. Great feel and the uniformity is acceptable. The slanted band is unique. Too bad it was way too loose and had to be removed at the start.
Draw 8/10
Using a punch on the lightweight, I still ended up with a draw that was on the loose side. Things got a little better on the last third, but I had to make sure the pulls were extremely gentle as not to overheat the cigar.
Burn/Construction 8/10
It didn't do well in this category either. The whole cap fell off at light up. A tunnel formed at the start and continued until the final third. Lots of harsh corrections with the flame was needed. The ash pretended to be strong and gave the appearance, but I knew better and made sure to ash frequently. The cigar felt very squishy in the hand for most of the session. The last third things behaved a little better.
Taste 8.5/10
1/3 - Starts out with a Medium+ body of baking cocoa, bark, and dead grass. Once the performance truly gets going there is a nice spicy fig on the retro with an overall softness on the finish. Trailing the first third is a note of dark leather.
2/3 - A fairly large step into green tea territory. A caramel sweetness has been added to the spicy fig retro. The dead grass seems to have gained some color and the baking cocoa has taken a back seat. The soft finish has been drastically replaced with bold, dark leather.
3/3 - Another major shift as the spice has been replaced by lemon. Retro has lost all sweetness and has become lemon leather. Bark wasn't content with being in the first third only and pulls forward quite a bit. Fig and cocoa struggle to be seen.
Overall 8.3/10
If you enjoy a cigar that has wide swings between thirds, this may be something you want to check out. The thing burned so quickly though that once you got comfortable with a flavor profile it seemed to move on to another. I don't think that the construction issue is a lone sample problem though. I have heard plenty of gripes about construction on Fratello smokes. Button up the construction and this would be a more enjoyable cigar.
**Number of cigars smoked for the review: 1
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