Welcome back to the Blend of the Week. 🔥

Every Monday we put one cigar under the microscope: what's in it, how it smokes, how it's been received, and whether it's worth your money. Yes, it's Tuesday. The cigar was ready yesterday. The guy with the send button was not. Call it the Monday edition with 24 hours of extra age on it. This week, ACID Cold Infusion from Drew Estate: the tea-infused Brooklyn original that turns a slim Connecticut lonsdale into a glass of peach iced tea.

ACID was born in Brooklyn in the late 1990s, under the Manhattan Bridge by Jonathan Drew's own telling, back when Drew Estate was a small crew working out of Jay Street. The idea was heresy to the cigar establishment: take real long-filler tobacco, roll it in Nicaragua, then infuse it with herbs, botanicals and essential oils until it smelled like nothing else in the humidor. The name honors Scott "ACID" Chester, the artist whose graffiti-style work covers every box and band.

It worked. ACID pulled a generation of people into premium cigars who had never set foot in a lounge, and Drew Estate still guards the infusion process inside La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate in Estelí.

Cold Infusion came up in the Holistics line, the ACIDs built around lighter, more botanical infusions, and for years the band read Cold Infusion Tea. Drew Estate now groups it under ACID Gold alongside the Krush Gold, Blondie Gold and Atom Maduro: the side of the family that spotlights the blending rather than the volume. Where a Kuba Kuba announces itself from across the room, Cold Infusion is the one you reach for when you want the aroma turned down to a conversation.

Flavor is personal, and we don't fake a chair we didn't sit in. Here's what this cigar's makeup, and the smokers who've actually burned through it, keep pointing to.

What's in it. The wrapper is Connecticut Shade, the thin, golden leaf grown under cloth tents to keep it mild and creamy, the same family of leaf on a Macanudo Café or an Ashton Classic. It's the right canvas here because it doesn't fight the infusion. Underneath, Nicaraguan binder and filler from Drew Estate's own farms give it enough backbone to be a cigar and not a candle. Then comes the part nobody outside Estelí gets to see: after rolling, the cigars go through Drew Estate's infusion, and in this blend the botanicals land as tea and stone fruit rather than the floral sweetness of the blue-banded ACIDs. The 44 ring gauge matters too: a slim cigar puts more wrapper in every puff, so the Connecticut and the infusion stay front and center.

How it smokes. Synthesized from published reviews plus what these leaves typically do. Not a smoke we're claiming we took.

Pre-light: the wrapper and foot smell like sweet black tea with a peach note, strong enough to perfume whatever it's stored next to. Cold draw brings light cream and fruit.

First third: tea leaf from the first puff, with light tobacco underneath and a gentle sweetness. Reviewers describe it as clean and crisp rather than sugary.

Second third: the peach shows up around the one-third mark and cream rounds it out. Some smokers pick up citrus and honey here, and a fresh pine note rides the finish.

Final third: it holds the line. The flavors stay consistent and mellow out toward the end, with no strength climb and no bitterness to run from.

Construction: a smooth, lightly oiled wrapper with few veins. Reviews report a nearly perfect burn, a firm gray ash that holds longer than a 44 ring has any right to, and an easy draw. The stick runs a little soft in the hand, normal for an infused cigar, and the band glue is light, so peel it rather than slide it. Budget 45 minutes to an hour.

How it's been received. ACID sits outside the scored-review circuit, so the buyers do the scoring: 4.33 out of 5 across 51 reviews at JR Cigars and 4.3 across 41 at Best Cigar Prices, with smoothness, the draw and the aroma coming up again and again. The Stick Stickler gave it a 90 and called it an acquired taste he happened to love. The calibration: this is a mild, sweet cigar by design. If you want more tobacco in the mix, the Atom Maduro is the fuller-bodied door into ACID Gold.

Pair it with. Drew Estate's own picks are breakfast tea and Chardonnay, and both make sense: the tea doubles the infusion, and a lightly oaked Chardonnay meets the cream and peach halfway. Our call is a cold brew coffee in the morning or a gin and tonic in the afternoon, where the botanicals talk to each other. Skip the bourbon; it buries the cigar. This is a daytime smoke, built for a patio, a back nine, or the hour after brunch.

Who it's for. New smokers first: it's mild, forgiving and smells good to everyone within ten feet, which makes it one of the easiest cigars to hand a friend. Veterans use it as a palate break, or as the cigar they light when the people around them don't smoke. If you live on Nicaraguan pepper and want tobacco and nothing else, this isn't your lane; the Kuba Kuba is the louder ACID and the Atom Maduro the richer one.

Where to buy. Easy to find; ACID is everywhere Drew Estate is sold. Our shop this week is Cigars Daily, which has Cold Infusion in singles at $11.07, five-packs at $52.43 and the box of 24 at $216.00, about 18% under the $264 MSRP. One tip whichever way you buy: give it its own bag or humidor, because the infusion travels to anything it shares air with.

ACID Cold Infusion is the cigar that proves infused doesn't have to mean loud. A Connecticut-wrapped lonsdale with real Nicaraguan tobacco underneath, infused in Estelí until it tastes like peach iced tea, and consistent enough that buyers have been giving it four-plus stars for years. At $11 a stick it isn't a bargain bin smoke, so start with a five-pack, pour something cold, and give it a morning.

And for the ACID crowd, one more thing. Drew Estate is running the I ❤️ ACID sweepstakes through November 30. Post a photo of your ACID moment on Instagram, tag @drewestatecigar with #I❤️ACID and #DrewEstateSweepstakes, then finish your entry at the link below. The prizes are one-of-ones: a custom-painted ACID guitar, hand-painted ACID sneakers and an ACID skate deck. No purchase necessary, 21 and up.

🔥 Smoked a Cold Infusion yet? Hit reply and tell us where it landed, and what you poured next to it. And if there's a blend you want us to break down next week, send it our way.