Alec Bradley Prensado

thumbnail_IMG_7177The Alec Bradley Prensado, Robusto cigar is coming in at a 5x 50 ring. The Prensado is made in the Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras and utilizes a good amount of Honduran tobacco from Trojes. The Trojes region is located in the Southern part of Honduras.

Visually the Alec Bradley Prensado is like a piece of cigar art. The wrapper has a dark chocolate look to it. The wrapper is somewhat oily and smooth with virtually no veins in sight. It is well packed with no soft spots as well as being box pressed. The aroma on the foot is a combination of cedar and coffee. The wrapper gives off a strong barnyard aroma.

For my Alec Bradley Prensado Robusto, I used my a Colibri V-cut to open up the cap. With the pre-light draw the dry draw notes provided me with flavors of leather, coffee, and chocolate. Overall I considered the pre-light flavors to be enjoyable. The first draw after lighting provided me with a quick shot of pepper.  The pepper would settle quickly though and join with the notes of leather and coffee. The leather and coffee have quickly surfaced as the primary flavors of this cigar. By the end of the first third of the smoking experience, I detected some hints of nut in the finish.

During the second third of the Prensado, I detected a sour citrus in the background for a little bit. Eventually these citrus notes were replaced by some cedar spices. The cedar spices fused with the pepper note.  For the remainder of the cigar experience, the Prensado was highlighted by notes of leather, coffee, nut and spice. At no point while smoking the last half of the cigar none of the notes would overshadow the others. The finish was smooth and there were no harsh notes. The resulting nub was cool and soft.

In the end, not the most complex flavor profile, but some good flavor and definitely a dessert cigar that would go really well with a nice cup of coffee and chocolate cake. The cigar was a solid medium body cigar and the burn was close to perfect and razor sharp. My overall opinion on this cigar is that it gets a 4 star out of 5 Construction is impeccable. The flavors were very enjoyable with a solid Medium on the body. Not too much strength at least for me. I would buy another given the chance.

Review by Distinguished Ruffian member @mouthwash_cologne

Wrapper: Trojes, Honduras

Binder: Nicaragua

Filler: Trojes, Honduras, Nicaragua

Size for Review: Robusto 5×50

Taste: Full body.

Website: www.alecbradley.com

Price: Around $10.00 depending on location.

Rating: 4 out of 5 pints.

Buy or Build an AR

AR1Should you buy a AR or build one? Well learn from my experience when I tell you that building an AR is going to bed a better option but why?

Ok let’s say you go buy a decent Ar-15 for $1,000. Well what’s the first thing you are going to replace… the stock so you go spend $60 on a new magpul stock. Next you wanna be like the cool kids and get a NiB bolt carrier group for $250. Then you want a quadrail so you drop another $250. Then you buy a new charging handle for $80. You then buy a grip for $25. Well your trigger isn’t that great so you go buy one for $200. You keep shooting your new ar that you decked out and find out that you have to keep cleaning it every time you shoot it so you spend $300 on a piston driven gas system. So let’s take a look at what you have spent… $2,165 and you have all these extra parts (which I hate).

So let’s look at building one, I’ll break down mine. A billet upper and lower for $300. Magpul UBR stock for $300. For a buffer and buffer spring $25. Magpul grip for $30. CMMG trigger kit for $80. So know the lower portion of the Ar is done, now to the upper. A WMD NiB bolt carrier group for $250. A raptor charging handle for $80. Barrel for $150. Gas block and tube for $90. Quadrail for $200. Muzzle break for $100. Some Troy battle sights for $200. Finally a foregrip for $30. Now let’s look at the final price… $1,835 that’s a lot better price. Now you have your dream gun with NO extra parts for less than the Ar-15 that you just decked out above.

Now this price is just for the one I built prices can vary depending on what you pick and what caliber you want. There’s endless options and it can get a lot more expensive then what I listed above. I like to think that Building an Ar-15 is the manly version of Legos. Again I would recommend building an Ar over buying one.

 

Article by Distinguished Ruffian member @sam___Hansen

Degenerate Cigars

imageA new cigar company is coming out and it happens to be from one from one of our own members. When we heard this was happening we had to grab the opportunity to talk them for a bit and find out what it’s all about and not surprisingly there was more to it than just being a new cigar company. After talking to Sawyer for a few minutes it was obvious that this was something that we wanted to help spread the word about.

Here’s a little bit of what we talked about and what Sawyer had to say about his cigars.

“Currently I’m an Army Ranger however I’m in the process of becoming a civilian. Through my company I hope to raise awareness of several issues that plague our Special Operations community chief among them being the rate of veteran suicides. I plan on donating a portion of the profits from every cigar sold to a carefully selected military themed charity. (Lead the Way foundation, Dry Hooch, Special Operations Warrior foundation, ect) The cigars that are being made will all be done in small batches however the quality will be very high.

According to our rollers we have a release date hopefully end of January or February we have a Facebook of facebook.com/degeneratecigarco and an email of degeneratecigarco@gmail.com [think about asking for a preorder everybody]
Because I’m still in the military Im working with several state agencies as to which tobacco taxes I’ll be paying because I’m a “special case”.

The sticks are going to be sold in bundles of 10 for 100$ were estimating that around 10-15% of those dollars will be going to the charities mentioned. Keeping it military themed. The Ruffians are a great following and I’m hoping to make a difference with the money raised.”

What more could we really say about this? From what we’ve seen the cigars are very well constructed and have a great burn. (Just look at the photo above.) Degenerate Cigar Co is veteran owned an operated and it’s a great idea with a great purpose behind it. We’re proud to support his idea and hope to see it do well. Currently you can follow them on Instagram @DegenerateCigars.

Make sure you follow him and like his Facebook page. Feel free to shoot over emails asking for more information and ordering possibilities.