Cigar Review: Alec Bradley Texas Lancero

I found this in one of my recent trips to our local Total Wine & Spirits. Being the good husband that I am, I try to keep our wine fridge stocked for my wife. That saying of “Happy Wife, Happy Life” has a little bit more meaning when your wife is a school teacher during the COVID pandemic. After choosing a few bottles for her, I popped over to their walk-in humidor to look for anything to take home. It was nearly impossible to miss today’s review simply because of the sheer size of the cigar. The Alec Bradley Texas Lancero was thought up by Alan Rubin. They wanted to highlight some of the outer features of the lancero vitola but then combine them with a ‘Texas’ twist. I tried to recall when the last time I smoked a cigar of this size before and couldn’t pinpoint exactly when (most likely a few years). I walked out of the store with two of these cigars, ready to select one for today’s review.

No construction on the cigar selected for review. This is the first cigar out of the two that I purchased. Aromas out of the packaging included faint nuts and wood while the cold draw brought me the barely-perceptive taste of wood. My guillotine cutter wasn’t quite up to the task of cutting this cigar properly with a few attempts. Thankfully, I had an extra straight cutter laying around that did the job. I found the opening draw to be nicely balanced but I’ll admit that I found it to be an issue to get a solid pull from the cap. The company advertises this cigar as medium bodied in strength and I would agree with their assessment. It’s very easy on the palette. Coupled with opening notes of the nuts and wood found on the pre-light along with faint spice notes on the aftertaste, I found the cigar to make for an enjoyable balance of strength and flavor. The strength and flavors held firm for quite awhile. It was finally at the 48 minute mark where I began to notice a modest increase in strength and more wood notes coming out on the palette. The last 20 or so minutes of the cigar I found additional wood and hits of spice to wrap this behemoth up. The total smoking time on the Alec Bradley Texas Lancero was a surprisingly quick 1:19.

I lost track of how many burn corrections I performed on this cigar. I know I had at least three in the first 24 minutes alone. And I know for sure there was at least four or five more. This could be from a number of factors from the cigar itself to the humidification from where I purchased it. I could have unconsciously smoking this too fast although it didn’t seem like I was.

By-The-Numbers
Pre-light: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 3.75/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.25/10

To recap the Alec Bradley Texas Lancero:

• While I enjoyed the balance of flavors and strength, the cigar didn’t grow or develop any additional flavors or added strength. If you are a fan of big ring gauge, medium-ish strength cigars with easy-going flavors, give this a shot.
• The flavors and strength of this cigar are not going to scare off any level of cigar smoker. The size of it however will.
• Price per cigar and how much cigar you get for the price, it’s a fine deal.
• At first test, I didn’t care for this one. I’d love to try this cigar again in an actual lancero vitola. I’ll smoke the other one soon and see how it turns out. If I need to make an addition to my thoughts on the cigar, it’ll be here or in a future ‘Thoughts From the Smoking Chair’ post.

Thank you so much for reading. I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.