All Saints St. Francis Dedicacion Berkey

All Saints St. Francis Dedicacion Berkey is a box-pressed Nicaraguan with a somewhat gritty, very dark brown San Andres wrapper sporting no visible veins.

This is a rich, bold flavored smoke with cedar, dark chocolate, pepper, dried fruit, earth, hay, some saltiness and espresso – serious coffee notes. The salt and sugar – from the dark chocolate taste, I presume – have an interesting balancing act going from puff to puff. There were a few notes of unidentifiable nuts and vegetal/floral. Few – and far between, but there on a puff or two.

It’s medium-full bodied, bordering on full. It also has some strength to it getting stronger through each third. The pepper also kicks into another gear through the final third. There are faint notes of spice – something akin to nutmeg meets cinnamon and maple, but it’s predominantly pepper stealing the show in that arena. I never felt there was any real balance to the flavors. The retrohale is loaded with pepper and very harsh. The St. Francis Dedicacion is a very woody, chocolate, coffee-driven stick.

The cigar produced a generous amount of smoke with a near perfect draw and a burn line that went off kilter a few times but managed to correct itself with brief touchups. White, grey ash held fairly well, tapped off easily but did fall of a couple of times before the one inch mark.

All Saints St. Francis Dedicacion Berkey was a pleasant smoke, but a bit strong and too peppery for my personal tastes and it finished rather harsh. Overall, it is a decent cigar, but I prefer the Colorado.

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