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Now the third and final installment of my exploration into the European attitude for non-Cuban cigars: France’s Best Cigars of 2005 (part III): Honduras. I must say that I have personally enjoyed this little research, originally spurred by a general observation of an important lack of non-Cuban cigars in even the best European tobacconist shops.

So, having explored France’s Best from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua (aka: other territories) here are the winners of the 2005 trophies from Honduras:

The runner up, receiving four stars out of six, is the Flor de Copan Linea Puros Robusto (Tubo). Not to be confused with the regular Flor de Copan line, the Linea Puros is a definite effort at achieving a more robust blend for richer, fuller-bodied cigars. This cigar is described as having a rustic appearance that gives an impression of strength. They describe the smoke as clean, sweet and chocolaty, with a light initial spiciness that recedes soon afterwards. Not a strong cigar, in their opinion, its only flaw seems to be a rather strong sour character when drawn upon too eagerly. This puro promises to be a cigar both sweet in aroma and medium-bodied by virtue of its dense smoke.

Now for the winner, with five stars out of six, we have the Flor De Selva Robusto, a cigar whose only weakness came in the form of a relatively fragile wrapper that tears easily when removing the band. The smoke was described as cool with woody notes at first, gaining in complexity in the second half with caramel notes and ending with more peppery and toasty notes, with no trace of bitterness from start to finish.

Not bad at all, plus at just over five euros a stick, it makes me want to run out the door and grab a few myself.

And there you have it, all the non-Cuban winners of 2005; some quite puzzling choices in some cases, in others, well… just not the ones that would come to mind to U.S. aficionados. At any rate, France’s best of 2005 Non-Cuban cigars certainly have been eye opening to me.

Alright folks, if you are a big Nicaraguan cigar fan try to keep your composure as you read Part II of France’s Best Cigars of 2005. Personally I am a big fan of Nicaraguan tobacco. It seems that when it comes to non-Cuban cigars I have a tendency to go for the Nicaraguan variety again and again. I just appreciate a certain hearty quality to the tobacco and a certain unmistakable earthiness.

Now, which are the France’s Best 2005: Nicaraguan cigars? First I should mention that they didn’t actually have a “Nicaraguan” category. So, both of these winners were selected in the “others” category, which I suppose reflect the sort of afterthought nature of the selection. Now, without further ado, here’s the runner up from Nicaragua with a total of two stars out of six: The Nicarao Robusto…

This runner up gets slammed right from the start as sour from start to finish, with the sourness increasing sharply in the second half. As I have smoked a number of these in the past I definitely concur with the assertion that the cigar has a particularly odd taste right from the start. It’s like an acidy grassy taste that doesn’t appeal to me. So, what gets me from this selection is not the rating itself, but rather how they arrived at the conclusion that this is Nicaragua’s number two smoke. The cigar is very light and has hardly any richness to the smoke, though I could see how some people might like its unique taste. So, on a final note, the reviewers describe it as a generally boring sour cigar that boasts a nice appearance.

The 2005 Nicaraguan winner is another “petit” format, the Cumpay Short petit-robusto. A small cigar indeed, at just over ten centimeters, but one that got six stars out of six. Admittedly not one that I have had, the petit-robusto is hailed as a cigar that can be measured up to Cuban cigars, whose only weak point is how short it is. The smoke is described as dense and fresh, with an aroma of sweet peppers, dried herbs (an aroma I normally would not attribute to Cuban cigars), red peppers and honey; all in all, a delicate and well balanced cigar. Seeing that it hails from the Esteli region, this is a cigar I will most definitely try and review in the months to come.

And there you have it… two winners that most of us Nicaraguan cigar lovers would hardly recognize and wouldn’t buy.