The Particulars

The Review

This review for the Room101 Johnny Tobacconaut - Perfecto (6 x 56) is based on the journal entry dated 2026-08-10

Appearance & Construction (0-3):  Good (3)

So there are two things that immediately give me pause. One, it’s a Perfecto, and sometimes they can be a little finicky with anything from the draw, to the burn, to even the overall construction reliability. That’s incredibly annoying because they’re generally more expensive due to being harder to roll. Sure enough, using my Fox Knives cutter to prepare the cigar with a slight angle cut, the wrapper decided to completely unravel, so I’m literally paused while I wait for the cigar glue to do its thing. Like I said, finicky…

The other concern is the use of an Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade wrapper. Sometimes, I run into certain variants that have a horribly bitter, metallic note to them. I’m saying that now because the more yellowish, kraft-paper-looking wrappers like this one tend to be much more likely to have that bitter note, so I’m really hoping this one doesn’t.  Editor’s note: SPOILER ALERT – FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

But to the point, this yellowish-tan wrapper that looks like it should be holding my tax forms has a light sheen and a little bit of mottling. There are only a couple of very thin veins present and the seams are tight, except for the spot where it didn’t have any glue and unraveled… 🤷🏻‍♂️. But there’s a nice firmness and density to it, and things look good overall. And speaking of looking good, the bands and presentation are really nice. I’m a little torn on the use of the tissue and extra paper tubing (like the Namakubi) because it completely obscures the cigar until it’s out of the packaging, but it’s definitely eye-catching. Out of the tissue paper, the brass and black double bands are sharp and well-designed. Room101 is nothing if not creative with the well-known strutting spaceman, armed with his garden spade and collected tobacco leaves.

Draw (0-3) & Burn (0-4):  Good (3) / Great (4)

The draw is spot-on and the burn starts incredibly cleanly. No flames shooting up the sides of the foot, charring the length of the wrapper, or major issues getting a good burn going from the Perfecto’s narrow foot. Even as the burn line creeps around the most bulbous portion of the foot, it maintains a crisp and even burn line. Surprising, but highly pleasing, because Perfectos can be a nightmare to get a clean burn on.

The ash is light gray and a little flaky, featuring widely spaced striations that create deep channels in the ash. Also notable is that this is a total smoke bomb, throwing copious amounts of smoke on every single puff. The ash safely rolled right off into the tray exactly as it reached the secondary “Johnny Tobacconaut” band, saving me the effort of seeing if I could successfully remove the band without wearing the ash. But that’s a great burn overall; it reached the halfway point of the cigar with a very even and only slightly wavy burn line. The only downside to note with the burn is that the cigar got a little squishy as it got hot, but it was nothing that actively dragged down the smoking experience.

Flavor Profile (0-5):  Poor (1)

White pepper, cedar, grainy corn-flake-like notes, and a bit of lemon sweetness right at the start. There’s a little bit of a saltiness I’m getting off the wrapper as well, which quickly turns into a lot of salt. A heavy creaminess then kicks in, carrying a distinctly buttery quality to it. It’s almost exactly like buttered popcorn—a dry, grainy base note soaked in salty, buttery creaminess, but it’s popcorn that’s been heavily coated in pepper. The pepper started white, really hitting my sinuses first, but it quickly picked up more black pepper and is now hitting the back of my throat as well.

I do get a slightly bitter, metallic note that blends in with a black coffee flavor I’m picking up. But it’s not a rich, creamy, bold coffee or espresso. This is bitter-ass, budget, instant coffee scooped out of a giant tin can. Maybe it’s Folgers, but if it is, it’s the completely unhinged “YOU’RE MY CHRISTMAS GIFT THIS YEAR” Folgers with the heavily implied incest. Ooof, that’s an absolute low point and makes Sanka seem more desirable. 👀 But either way, I’m undeniably getting that bitter, metallic note that I was afraid of.

At the halfway point, I’m still undecided on exactly how much I’m enjoying the blend. It’s super creamy with that salty, sweet, and savory buttered popcorn flavor, accented by occasional hits of lemon citrus. It’s woody and has those cereal-like grain notes accented by red and white pepper. But it’s also highly metallic and bitter at times, leaving a slightly sour and acrid note squarely on my tongue. It’s not super consistent, but it pops up just enough to be completely off-putting and make me want to retch. If I wasn’t getting that note, this cigar would be a fucking delight. But it’s the exact same metallic, bitter note I get from certain other Ecuadorian Connecticut wrappers. It could be something I could try to mask with a pairing like coffee, so I’ll make a note to try that in the future. But it’s getting far more frequent as I enter the last third. I’d chalk it up to being fresh, but these have already been resting for a couple of months. 🤔

Just to recap some of the other minor flavors I’ve encountered: there are some light hay-like notes, alongside very minor earth and leather. The lemon zest is a little more dominant in the last third while the buttery sweetness is heavily reduced. It’s still creamy, but not sweet and savory like it was. There’s no baking spice at all, just white and black pepper. The genuinely dominant notes are cedar and that cereal-like, grainy breadiness. The black coffee flavors are sitting at a medium but increasing in the tail end, right alongside the bitter metallic and acrid notes that unfortunately finish the cigar off. When the cigar lands, it hits the high notes well, but it falls completely on its face in the final third with a consistent acridity and metallic bitterness that a simple flush isn’t fixing. If I wasn’t getting that bitter, acrid, mineral/metallic note, this would be a fucking delight. But I am, so fuck me…

Overall Experience (0-5):  Poor (1)

While the Perfecto burned surprisingly well and was completely devoid of many of the structural headaches the vitola can bring, the metallic, bitter acridity that started as an intermittent annoyance became far too consistent at the end for me to really enjoy the cigar fully. Which leaves me asking, is this something that everybody else experiences and overlooks, or is it just me?

I’m going to pair my next one with an espresso or an Abbina Royale for the coffee and chocolate notes. I’m incredibly curious to see if that improves on some of the bitter and metallic acridity that I was getting off this stick. Knowing the Smoke & Steel guys love the JT as a morning cigar and usually pair it with coffee, that may be the actual key to masking that bitterness (albeit with more bitterness) and giving the tastier flavor notes more room to shine. But as it stands for me, with the Perfecto having an $18 MSRP, there a literal fuck-ton of better Connecticuts on the market for that kind of money.

Maybe my buddies snag the Toros and Gordos for a steep discount from the big online retailers, because this would be a much more forgiving blend at a sub-$10 price point. But I ultimately did not get anywhere near the level of joy from this cigar that they espoused. It’s hard not to feel a bit let down. If I didn’t already know this was a well-loved cigar (and I know they’re ignorant to my issues with certain Ecuadorian Connecticuts) I’d almost wonder if this was a very complicated ruse to get back at me for the sweet-tipped Girl With No Name I surprised them with during my visit to the podcast. 😂 But no, this is just me. Once again, fuck me… Just please, get the lube?

Postscript

Pairing my second cigar with Abbina Royale helped… a bit. It didn’t fully fix the issue, but it helped to mask it a little bit. Taking a puff immediately after a sip of the chocolate and coffee-flavored Royale definitely cut the bitterness off the JT, but if I went a couple of draws without taking a sip, it would come roaring back. The Royale pairing accentuated the cedar, nutty, chocolate, and coffee notes while masking some of the mineral bitterness and harsher coffee notes. I’m not really sure if it’s a redeeming quality for the JT that you explicitly need a pairing just to improve the cigar, but it’s certainly a testament to the absolute power of a proper pairing and exactly why a drink like Abbina should be sitting in your fridge.

That said, the repeatability of the bitter metallic note I’ve had across multiple brands of cigars using similar-looking Ecuadorian Connecticut wrappers really has me thinking about the concept of “supertasters.” They aren’t people who have Superman-like taste buds where they get every subtle note; it’s about people who can detect and be entirely overpowered by certain flavors—like bitterness—that most other people don’t pick up at all. Cilantro is a well-known example of the concept.  For some people, Cilantro tastes like straight soap, and for others, they don’t taste it at all.  That may be what’s happening here and that’s all genetics, baby. There is nothing you can teach or train, except for trying to not gag when you get those nasty flavors in your mouth. Matt Booth, maybe eat some pineapple, bud? 🍍🤷🏻‍♂️

Point being, this isn’t “oh, well we all have different palates,” which is the de facto response when somebody doesn’t like a cigar that others do.  This isn’t pizza toppings where we just like different things.  This is me getting a totally different (and negative) flavor out of a cigar that other people just don’t pick up.  And that sucks because what other people can simply enjoy becomes a miserable experience for me.

But stay tuned, I’ll be doing some research and testing on this phenomenon. I shouldn’t have such a radically different experience that leaves other people scratching their heads (or their balls) in absolute confusion that one of their favorite morning cigars hits me as intensely bitter and metallic. Something they don’t experience at all.  Sigh…. 🙄

Overall Score and Individual Journal Entries

While the review is based off one instance of journaling this cigar; there’s a number of reasons you can have different experiences smoking the same cigar multiple times. A blend can evolve with age (for better or worse), palates evolves, preferences change, and sometimes you just get a bad example!  This section captures the ratings from each journal entry and the related journal photo.  Below you’ll find an aggregate score based on every time the cigar has been journaled. Unless it was a gift or on-off smoke, this section will be updated every time I journal this cigar!

The Flavor Wheel

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.