Cigar Extra: Blood Medicine by Crowned Heads

• Vitola: Super Corona
• 5.5 x 48 ring gauge
• Gifted by Crowned Heads

Background

This was an unexpected gift. As I mentioned in my review of the 2015 Las Calaveras, Burns Owner, Mike Hunter, spent some time in Nashville last week talking to Jon Huber. He came back with this cigar as a gift for me…one of the few remaining event-only cigars they made with the “Snake Oil” band on it still. Snake Oil was the original name of this cigar, but copyright issues required the name to change, so now we have “Blood Medicine.” Pretty sure we’re not talking about Warfarin here.

You can only get this cigar at Crowned Heads events and then only if you buy a box of cigars…so this is definitely a privilege. According to the news piece on halfwheel, this is a Nicaraguan blend from My Father Cigars and features an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper leaf.

This is what is written about the name:

The inspiration behind the ‘Blood Medicine’ name ties back to an historic building in downtown Nashville, Tennessee (home of Crowned Heads).  The three-story building was built circa 1870, and housed a pharmacy on the 1st floor, a hardware manufacturing company on the 2nd floor, and a wholesale drug company on the 3rd floor that was famous for producing the alcohol and opium based “Blood Medicine.”

I paired mine with Maker’s Mark and opted to not do a full review this time around.

Notes

On light-up, this My Father blend was very smooth and a bit leathery. There was very little of the pepper experienced at the start of many of their blends. After 4 or 5 puffs, it became evident that this was a unique blend in the CH catalog…complex and nuanced, while still being fairly strong.

I got some interesting sweet dried fruit notes early on. While I expect some sweetness from some Habano Ecuador, this one took me by surprise with the intensity of it…and with the lack of pepper spice.

As I continued through I got more leather notes and lots of earthiness.

Drawing near the close, I was impressed by the build quality of Blood Medicine. But it’s by My Father Cigars, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise.

I also noted that this was a “big” cigar. Not in size (it isn’t…and thank God), but in flavor and body. It’s definitely full-bodied and possesses a meaty goodness in terms of flavor complexity and strength. Early on in Crowned Heads’ development, there were rumors that they would work with Tatuaje. That didn’t happen, but this cigar is the closest they’ve come so far to a Tat Brown Label…and I say that in the best possible way. It’s not the same, but it reminded me of that blend in certain ways.

As noted before, the only way to get these is to get your butt to a Crowned Heads event and buy a box…do so!