i will not digitize an opus about the matter; except to assert that i have begun a love affair with the holy trinity [with the exception of the "guilt."]

as a former therapist once put it: “guilt is the mafia of the mind.”

keep on bringing the trinity to cyberspace. . . . in the name of single malt, women and song.

please excuse me while i light my stogie. as there’s no such thing as a hands free stick.

all good things to you.

But the spot looked precisely like that, almost like a splash of wax. Problem is now I don’t recall if it was under the band or just on the outside. I seem to recall it being on the outside.

I’ll keep my eyes open for something similar as I smoke more.

The splotch you saw in the picture where I was holding the cigar was underneath the cigar band itself–it was actually that small piece of wrapper I mentioned came off after quite carefully removing the Opus band.

I regret not photographing the glue spots on the cigar before I smoked it, but Barry was totally aware of what I had on my cigar despite his having no blemishes whatsoever. Basically it looked like something along the lines of shiny donut glaze, but it was very thin, super shiny, and wasn’t sticky to the touch. (It obviously discolours the wrapper in those spots, so it’s hard to miss.) I immediately knew it was glue, but Barry had another interesting theory that didn’t apply since the cigar wasn’t cedar-wrapped. (He suggested that he has seen a similar occurance when cedar-wrapped cigars, i.e. H Upmann Vintage Cameroon Toros, where it’s almost as if the wood while breathing excuded some sort of sap-like substance onto the wrapper.)

If you can take a picture of the RyJ cigar in question I’d be happy to give you my professional opinion.