Vitola: Robusto
Size: 5″ x 52 ring gauge
Price $9.99
Purchased at Maxamar’s Cigars
Background
I’ve been a fan of AJ Fernandez cigars for a while and I make sure to give any new ones a try when they show up at the shop. I didn’t realize that these were released at the show and was looking forward to trying them when I saw them. I’ve smoked many of the natural Enclave cigars and I definitely like Broadleaf wrappers. Dave did an excellent review of the toro size recently, you can see it here. I’m sort of surprised that the blend is completely different, but not totally. This was the first robusto I tried, but I did smoke two toro sized ones previously.
Prelight
Another cigar with banding that makes it very clear what it is. The top band is slightly different than the natural and a bit more subdued. The wrapper is a very dark brown in color with lots of tooth and some oils. When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give and without any soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got some pretty intense barnyard aroma, with slightly less coming from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw I got notes of peanut and wood with a good draw.
Flavor
It starts off with a good amount of spice on the tongue and retrohale. After a few puffs I noted flavors of chocolate, coffee, leather and wood with a sweet finish. The cigar starts off at the bottom end of full strength. When I moved into the second third the spice mellowed out a but. The flavors were pretty similar to first third. As I moved into the final third the spice and strength started to build some. In the final third the flavors were less sweet than the previous two thirds; cocoa, leather and wood.
Construction
This sample had pretty much a perfect draw and a pretty straight burn line.
Value
So the morons in my state decided to pretty much double the tobacco tax on cigars and that just went into effect on July 1 so the price in the store is about $1.50 higher than those of you out of state can get this cigar for. That being said it is also slightly higher in price than the natural Enclave. In spite of that I can agree with Dave that this is another good buy from AJF.
Conclusions
I will definitely be adding this to my regular rotation. I don’t know if I can say yet if I like it better than the natural blend, they are different and have different feelings. I can say I like them both. If you want to give this new cigar a try you can head over to SmallBatchCigar.com as they have them in stock now.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10
