Wrapper: Connecticut
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican
This is a limited release cigar by one of my favorite makers out there. Let’s start with the gorgeous maduro wrapper, covered in the classic sandpaper-like bumps it smells sweet and musky. The construction on these cigars is always perfect, as would be expected from the Fuente rollers. Pre-light draw tastes of tea leaves and honey. After the first minute of puffing the draw opens up and the flavors come in. Mellow is the key word in the first half of this cigar. Lots of tea, honey, maybe some cedar. The smoke is very mild mannered and elegant. And if I’m honest, I loved every minute of it.
At the halfway point it strengthened up a bit, with cedar and nutty flavors coming in stronger, always holding on to that initial sweetness. The finish is short and a tad warm, holding onto the sweet taste of cedar till the last puff. This is a mild to medium-bodied cigar, but it is complex and sweet and balanced. I could smoke it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you’re lucky enough to find these in your local store do yourself a favor and purchase more than one. Once you try it, you’ll be happy you can go back for more.
Wrapper:Ecuadorian Connecticut – Sun Grown
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
This cigar is an impressive sight at first. With a 54 ring gauge it’s nice and beefy, and its pigtail cap looks as cuban as can be. Even the wrapper says “Cuba” on it, which I found to be rather misleading, if not a bit gimmicky. This cigar is built like a rock, when squeezed there’s no give. The pigtail cap guillotines easily, and the foot lights up fast. However, I had some burn and burst issues with this cigar, enough so to actually bring down the score substantially. As the cigar started, it began to crack and burst under the heat. Eventually giving me two nice deep cracks running up both sides of the stick till about midway. This really annoyed me. I bought three of these from my local B&M, all from the same box, and in two out of the three the filler tobacco tried to break out in the beginning of the smoke. These factors brought the score for this cigar down almost one full point, taking it from a 9.1 to an 8.1. So I’m really hoping this isn’t the fault of the cigar and maybe perhaps a humidification issue at my local store. I am going to test some more and let you know.
Taste: Mellow, smooth, yet very aromatic. This cigar tastes fantastic in my opinion. Lots of sweet tobacco, mixed with coffee notes, and a good amount of tea, with very light spicy notes on the nose. Taste-wise, this cigar pushed all the right buttons for me. The draw was a tad stiff, and the smoke was very light, but I just couldn’t get over how well this cigar tasted. I’m going to try a few more before buying a box just to make sure the crack and burn issues were a fluke, and then I would happily recommend buying a box of these limited edition cigars. Perfect lunchtime smoke.