Stogie Reviews: CI Legends “Purple Label”

2 Jul 2008

For the past few years, online retailing behemoth Cigars International has been selling a premium house brand known as the “Legends” series. These cigars, each one made by a different boldfaced name in the business, represent what CI declares “the very best for the money” (a roughly $5-per-stick price tag). For a mere $5, you can enjoy the equivalent of a much pricier Don Pepin Garcia, or Graycliff, or Perdomo, etc.—or so the marketing goes.

Curious to see if these off-label premiums lived up to their brand-name equivalents, I lit up the Purple Label, a 5.7 inch by 54 ring gauge stick blended by Graycliff mastermind Avelino Lara. The Purple Label is a good-looking cigar whose smooth appearance, slightly spongy texture, and sweet aroma certainly bring the Graycliff Crystal PGX to mind.

Unfortunately, that’s about all this offering has in common with its Graycliff cousin. I can only surmise that the Purple Label is made with inferior tobacco to that found in the name-brand Crystal PGX, because the flavor is only superficially similar. Both are mild-bodied cigars, but the Crystal PGX offers a lot of complexity to belie its gentleness.

The Purple Lable, however, is a study in bland repetition. From start to finish, I tasted a single flavor note—basically what I’d describe as the essence of wet and slightly moldy hay. This is not a very enticing flavor to encounter in one puff of a cigar, much less a hundred or so. But that’s what I got from the Purple Label: Puff after boring puff, this cigar played a symphony in the key of blah. I was all too happy to toss the nub of my first stick, and when sampling my second, I was just as pleased to put it to rest.

I suppose it’s worth mentioning that the Purple Label is a mechanically decent cigar. The draw is a bit too tight, but forgivable. The burn is sharp and even. The ash holds true for inches at a time. But do these qualities really matter when you’ve got no interest in what you’re smoking? I’d almost get the same experience just pretending to puff on the Purple Label for an hour and change, never lighting the foot.

Bottom line: If you want to smoke a Graycliff, you’re unfortunately going to have to pay for the real thing. This cigar is no substitute. Still, for solid aesthetics, competent handling and ennui-inducing flavor, I give the CI Legends Purple Label a very generous two out of five stogies.