Avo 25th Anniversary and Aging Cigars

• Vitola: Toro
• 6” x 52 ring gauge
• ~$16
• Purchased from Burns Tobacconist

Background

As I continue to be a bit under the weather, I decided to turn my attention from something other than a regular review and combine an “aging report” with some thoughts on the issue of aging cigars.

The Avo 25th Anniversary came out in 2012, and it’s fair to say that I immediately coveted a box. The cigar was fine…the box was spectacular, shaped like a grand piano with a high gloss finish, the lid opens up to reveal room for 25 cigars in a humidified and somewhat sealed environment, so it’s not just a box, it’s a humidor. The faux-keyboard slides away to reveal room to hide some accessories. I was impressed with this humidor/box from day one. It took an additional 3 years to get around to getting one…part of the trade for advertising deal I made with Burns, a sponsor for this site.

After taking possession of the box of cigars, I discovered that the stogies themselves were actually still quite good, too! Being Avo, they are a Davidoff product, made in the O.K. Cigar Factory in the Dominican Republic. They are also a Dominican puro and, though no one I saw specified it, the flavor profile tells me the blend includes some of that signature Davidoff Olor leaf.

Aging

The subject of aging cigars has come up lately a few times. I think the first time it occurred to me recently for consideration was when I smoked a Tatuaje Jason right around Halloween of 2015. Despite the cigar having right around 2 years of age on it, it just didn’t have the depth of flavor or strength that the rest of the box did (this was my last stick of a 10-count box…most of which were reduced to ash within the first year after purchase). Earlier in the year, I had smoked my next-to-last Avo LE 10…a full 3 years old than the the Tat Jason…and it still retained the punch and power that it had when I bought it.

So I started talking to reps and others…turns out the consensus is that Dominican leaf ages more gracefully than Nicaraguan. Someone told me they had read an interview (or seen a video interview? I don’t know for sure) with Pete Johnson who said that his cigar are “read to smoke when they get to the store and shouldn’t be aged more than a year or two.”

That’s an astounding statement and one that flies in the face of much of what I’ve heard  people say over the years. It’s generally recognized that extensive aging (over a decade, I’d say) will tend to mellow out cigars to a point they are just a shell of their former selves. I had that happen with the CAO Maduro…the original version that was made in the Don Douglas factory in Costa Rice. Some people say it’s the best thing CAO has ever produced, but they were only produced for about 18 months starting in 1998. By the time I had one, they had been aged for about 12 years and were already mellow and smooth…much more mellow and smooth than they had been designed to be. Still a good smoke, but probably no longer a great one.

The upshot is that I am now paying a little closer attention to what I’m smoking, how long it’s been aging and where the tobaccos originated. Please feel free to add to the discussion below (in the Comments section) if you have any personal knowledge or have heard different information regarding the aging of cigars. While I’m fairly well-versed on cigars, I’ve not had the patience to extensively age much. I’m sure there’s much we all could learn on the subject.

Notes

The Avo 25th definitely still has a rich earthy aroma on the wrapper, along with touches of cedar and mushroom. The foot has more earth and some vegetal, almost bell pepper notes. The prelight draw was good and full of the Davidoff goodness of Olor tobacco mostly.

After lighting, I picked up lots of wood notes and some earth, but more than anything the funky taste of Olor along with some more of that bell pepper flavor.

As I got into the second third, the wood notes faded a bit and I got more earth and a slight note of Dominican graham.

The day I smoked this started off sunny and somewhat warm. By the time I lit up, the weather had turned a little colder…make that a LOT colder…and windy, as the latest winter storm blew into my area. We actually only caught the bottom edge of it, but the wind was pretty brutal. I evacuated the area before I got more than 2/3 through the cigar, escaping to the warmth of the house.

Regardless of having to cut this one short, I can say from the experience of smoking about 5 of these in the past couple months that this is a cigar that has aged very, very well in three-and-a-half to four years since it debuted. It continues to display funky Olor, woody, earth and sweet notes, with just a touch of pepper spice.

If you want to get your own piano humidor/box, we have a couple more left at the Burns online store.