Initial Smoke

As salt and pepper settle on the tongue, tastes of dry cedar, sweet black licorice, and the comforting maduro mixture of rich, dark soil, and that winning combo of chocolate and coffee come out. While a touch sweet at times, the blend builds upon dryness above all else, with a far heavier, full-bodied cigar flavor profile bubbling beneath. 

As predicted, age has not affected performance in a negative way, with draw flow, burn rate consistency, and smoke production being identical to what is found in a "fresh" box of 1502 Black Gold.

1st Half

Earthen topography comes into its own right about when the first starts to heat up, and it provides a perfect mineral and loam backbone for the blossoming cigar flavor profilers to perch upon. Deep and dark, but also milk chocolate sweet and swimming in star anise, it's a tasty, but equally chaotic at times, mash-up of heavier and lighter maduro moments, as the tobacco leaves attempt to exert dominance over one another in the hopes of becoming the primary flavor and aroma profile.

Get past the first thirty minutes of this smoke, and tastes of leather, oily coffee beans, and bittersweet dark chocolate appear to have come out on top. There's also a milder tropical wood note in there somewhere, which is light and tannin-strong, and as the body grows moderately fuller, so too do the richer retrohale aromatics and the spiciness of white pepper blended with black. 

2nd Half

By now, the cigar has gotten very full, both in body and flavor, with strength sitting somewhere toward the back of the short bus. Leather notes have grown oilier and bolder, as too have the coffee and cocoa, which have ditched the sweetness from earlier in favor of dry accent marks and more intense tannins. This results in that classic, "light vs dark" power struggle, which in this case, eventually becomes more of a "let's work together" sort of supergroup in the final third.

There, you will encounter the resurgence of licorice-like star anise tastes, a belt of coffee bean bitterness, and a dry, yet very full and elongated finish. Retrohales still manage to detect a touch of sweetness here and there, along with some muted baking spices, but by this point, everything is rapidly going dark on you, and it is time to embrace the boldest moment in the blend.

Parting Puffs

Sending shockwaves across the senses comes the salty, sweet, and super oily taste of buttery peanuts coated in salt and caramelized sugar. It may not be all the way peanut brittle, but it's pretty damn close, and it tastes delightful beside those strong wood tannin notes. Search hard enough, and you may also detect the taste of roasted chicory root, and a sweet, spicy, and somewhat acidic fermented resinous funk from the oils bubbling inside the cigar. It's an impressively potent concentrate that is both bold and smooth, and as long as you smoke nice and slow, it will not grow too resinous, tar-heavy, or bitter on you.

Ash / Burn / Smoke / Draw

I must say that Plasencia continues to crush when it comes to cigar construction and combustion, as little more than a couple of unexpected ash drops were the only concern I had with this vintage smoke. While a minor touch with the torch in the first third was required on my sample stick, it too burned great, and I was left feeling especially impressed by the coolness of the burn and the quality of smoke produced.

Final Thoughts

Any qualms I had with the 2013 version of the 1502 Black Gold had more to do with consistency in flavor profiles than anything else. Whereas my review cigar struck out on its own to explore new flavors and aromatics in every section, the sample stick I sparked the night prior was pretty much a sweet black licorice stick from start to finish. Yes, there were many of the same notes that were shared between the two cigars, but everything I found to be prominent while on camera seemed like more of an afterthought in the first stick. 

So, while both cigars came from the same box and the same vintage, and were incredibly tasty and smooth, there were some notable differences in the primary cigar flavor profiles being detected. Even after changing up my beverage to the rum I paired with my sample cigar the night prior, I didn't notice as much of a shift in flavor as an increase in sweetness. This was not enough to make me feel like I preferred one over the other, though. They were just different enough to leave me feeling a bit torn, especially since I knew that I stood little to no chance of ever seeing this vintage in my life again.