Room 101 The Farce Lonsdale: Nothing slapstick about this cigar!

I have heard a lot of buzz around Room 101 cigars. Alas, they aren’t readily available over here in the UK yet, but hopefully that will change soon. During the course of chatting with a friend over on Instagram they came up and I was offered the opportunity to try The Farce Lonsdale. This wasn’t an opportunity I was going to pass up and I promised that I would spend some quality time with the cigar and do a full review and give my opinion of the cigar.

It was an overcast Sunday afternoon when I took the cigar out of my humidor to smoke it. It felt a little dry when I took it out of the cellophane but it didn’t crunch and the wrapper didn’t split as I gave it a gentle squeeze from head to foot. I got lovely aromas of freshly brewed afternoon tea and the cold draw tasted like I was sinking my teeth into a warm slice of sweet tea cake.

Despite the prevalence of tea in both aromas and taste, I had my trusty cup of milky coffee with me as I lit up and settled down for an afternoon chat with the fine gentlemen from UK Cigar Forums. I needn’t have worried about the pairing as the flavour of The Farce Lonsdale changed on lighting to toasted cumin and black pepper with hints of raw garlic, and the coffee was the perfect counterpart. It wasn’t long before notes of leather started to develop and I really started to look forward to a nuanced flavour journey that I have come to associate with smaller ring gauge cigars.

At the start, the burn was perfectly even and left me with a strong, neat ash separated from the rest of the cigar with a double ring of red and black. The smoke had a slight yellowness to it but I was able to blow some beautifully thick rings that untangled themselves into ribbons. Right the way through the first third the flavour remained very consistent and it wasn’t until I reached the second third that it started to change.

The first change I noticed was a real creaminess that began to develop and where the black pepper had been at the forefront of the flavour in the first third, it started to take more of a back seat before eventually bowing out entirely. As the pepperiness dulled, sandalwood started to take over. This was followed by a subtle hint of vanilla that crescendoed throughout the rest of the Room 101 The Farce Lonsdale.

Alas, the construction at this point started to distract me from both the flavours in the cigar and the conversation. I hadn’t been ignoring the cigar by any means, but as I passed the mid-point the burn started to become uneven and needed regular touching up. By this time I had finished my coffee and was in need of another drink to accompany me to the end of the cigar. With the growing sweeter notes, I settled on a dependable gin and tonic made with Caorunn. The savoury berries and herbal notes of the gin worked beautifully with the remainder of The Farce Lonsdale.

The final third was heralded by a sweetness developing on the wrapper and transferring onto my lips. The vanilla notes had taken the front seat by now and there was no hint of peppery spice or earthy sandalwood. It wasn’t until the final couple of draws that one more flavour entered the mix. This was stewed plums, albeit without the expected level of sweetness. All in all it was a nice taste to conclude on. This was a good introduction to Room 101 cigars and I would certainly be up for sampling more cigars from this brand.

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Room 101 The Farce Lonsdale Cigar Details