Smoked: El Güegüense The Wise Man

The El Güegüense Corona Gorda is a dark reddish-brown wrapper that is smooth to the touch and slick with oil. Aroma from the wrapper is a combination of strong espressos beans, cinnamon, almonds, leather while the cold draw brings flavors of dark chocolate, earth, cedar, and sweet cream. 1st third has oak and leather flavors with black pepper and faint sweetness on the retroahale. I also pick up some other notes of earth, dark chocolate, bourbon and hay. Construction-wise, the draw is decent so far, and while I have to touch up the burn as you can see in the photo, it is not even close to bad enough to concern me. The strength is surprisingly just below medium but has strong flavors.

All my buddies says this has a barbecue spiciness that begins in the 2nd third but i tasted espresso, roasted nuts, earth, leather and cocoa. Retrohale is still the same but it now reminds me of a floral sweetness, and it is still not strong enough to really affect the profile. The draw and burn are still decent. Towards the mid-second, the smoke & strength picks up quite a bit.

The final third I didn't notice much of a change in flavors but espresso and earth do become stronger and more pronounced.

Overall, I give this ⭐⭐⭐⭐. It's a good stick but I think my B&M overhyped it so I was expecting something really good.