Gurkha Ghost Spook (Full Box of 21 Cigars)

• Length: 102mm
• Gauge: 60
• Flavour: Medium
• Wrapper: Brazilian Arapiraca Maduro
• Binder: Dominican Criollo 98
• Filler: Dominican and Nicaraguan
• Origin: Dominican Republic

Twenty-one is an odd number for a cigar box. Twenty-five is the usual number, and I still half expect the lid to be hiding four more. The cigars are each wrapped in its own cellophane sleeve with the holographic band facing up, and lined up like that they look like a jury that has already reached its verdict. The wrappers aren’t uniform, either. Some are close to black-brown and others noticeably redder, which is what natural maduro leaf tends to do.

The lid is where Gurkha spent the effort. Inside it, a silver Ghost wordmark and an illustrated figure sit in a tangle of scrollwork on black, and the same lettering runs across the front above Spook and “4x60 Short XO”. The box and bands both carry an 1887 date. That’s the brand’s heritage claim, and the company was relaunched in 1989, so I’d treat the date as a statement about the name more than the factory. Beside the UK health warning on the lid, the front carries a Californian one, a reminder that this box was designed for the whole world and not a Yorkshire counter.

What’s inside is a short, thick figurado, 4 inches at a ring gauge of 60. The Spook joined the Ghost line in 2016 alongside the Phantom, packed in boxes of 21 and not in tubes. The leaf is a dark Brazilian Arapiraca maduro wrapper over a Dominican Criollo 98 binder, with Dominican and Nicaraguan filler, handmade in the Dominican Republic. Strength is medium, and the maker describes sweet, earthy flavours with cocoa and cinnamon.

I’d leave the lid open on the counter. It does a better job of selling the thing than I do.