Cigar Review: Amazon Basin by CAO

Vitola: Toro
Size: 6” x 52 ring gauge
MSRP $9.25
Purchased at Maxamar

Background

Time to not pull any punches…when CAO Cigars was merged into the General Cigar family a few years back there was a lot of apprehension on all sides. Would the brand be ruined forever, as many argued had happened to other brands that had fallen under the conglomerate’s umbrella? Would the old blends remain the same? Would new blends be any good? Would the new regime continue the traditions of the old people or start something new? Only time would tell…and tell, it has…

I’m going to argue a few things here that fall in the arena of “opinion.” They are what I saw and what I would like to see. I don’t have a lot of inside information…just observing the ballgame from the sidelines: For a time, things looked pretty bleak for CAO. The first release under the new regime, OSA Sol, was good, but not great…and just not that memorable. It appeared that the new people in charge were going to try to follow the path charted by the previous folks. And, let’s be honest…some of the old blends DID change, and not for the better. I would argue that it wasn’t until Flathead in 2013 that the new CAO found its mojo. The blend was good, the marketing and presentation was unique and fun. Nothing about it was a throwback to the old era of the company (although it was a throwback to an older era in this country). That was followed closely by small batch holiday releases that were variations on some of the classic blends (for Christmas and July 4th), plus the “Natural Disasters” series released on a regional basis. Finally at IPCPR 2014, we had the Amazon Basin, one the most unique ideas for a cigar in the General fold in several years. (I’m going to choose not to mention the “Columbia” which is another throwback to the “old” CAO; even if the blend were perfect and begged to be released, I would have gone with a different name and marketing scheme.)

So…what makes the Amazon Basin so unique? It is a continuation of General’s and CAO’s new love for small batch, limited release cigars, but as a continuation, it’s not unique. The fact that it uses a tightly twisted piece of tobacco resembling rope as a band is somewhat unique…not the first time tobacco has been used as a band, but one of the best I’ve seen. No, what’s really unique about this one is the use of a specific type of leaf that doesn’t see the light of day much…Bragança.

Bragança is a remote region of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The rainforest is so thick in the area that there isn’t enough room to lay down huge, straight rows of tobacco fields, as you see almost everywhere else. Instead, the farmers plant it wherever sunlight will get through…

Once harvested, the leaves are rolled by hand into tubes called carottes and undergo six months of natural fermentation, a technique similar to that of Andullo tobacco. Once fermented, it takes four to six weeks to get them from forest to factory, a process that involves being hand carried to the river, put into canoes and rowed to the mainland, then driven to the port and shipped to Nicaragua where they are made. (from halfwheel.com)

In the end, this cigar is made of Nicaraguan fillers (plus some of the Brazilian Bragança), Nicaraguan binder and an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper leaf. I bought a couple of these at Maxamar on my recent trip to California; I smoked one while I was there and saved the other for this review.

Prelight

The “band” on this cigar makes for a very cool, rustic statement: “This is not your ordinary General Cigar product!” That may sound like I’m bagging on General again, but it’s really just a fact…for many years they didn’t stray far outside what was very safe; I’m glad to see recent efforts haven’t ended. The wrapper was a milk chocolate color with some lighter striations, especially around the veins, some of which were medium-plus in size. It had an oily sheen to it, too, and smelled mostly of just natural tobacco with a bit of earthiness. Sniffing the foot of the stick, I picked up more earth, some wood, and a bit of sweetness and anise.

The cold draw was where the first hint of real uniqueness in the flavor profile came in. There was the expected Nicaraguan earth and pepper spice, but something else, too…a cool woodiness of sorts…almost like menthol cedar, but not really. Some have called it nutty, some more of a dried fruit…I can see where all those flavors could be picked up on.

Flavor

On light-up I definitely got a strong cedar note, along with earth and a small, short dash of pepper. The flavor quickly turned more leathery and with a nutty and peppery retrohale. The smoke was fairly thick and oily, even in the breeze that kept it moving away from me, making for a fairly full-bodied start to the smoke. One particular flavor note in the mix also reminded me a bit of the original Foundry blend, which I did not care for at all, but it was at least unique and memorable; in that blend, one note was overpowering everything else and left a long and somewhat nasty finish; here the note is better balanced with cedar and earth and pepper and didn’t have the same effect on me. Really, though, as I got closer to the end of the first third, the predominant flavors coming through were leather and a strong smokiness.

The flavor didn’t change much in the second third, continuing with the strong leather and smoked wood flavors up front, along with anise and earth in the background. The pepper spice did diminish quite a bit as I smoked along.

In the last third the Amazon Basin gave up a bit of leatheriness for an earthier flavor; the anise faded quite a bit, too. When I hit the “tobacco rope” band, the smoke production was thick and furious for a few minutes, but it didn’t have a huge impact on flavor.

Construction

Early on in the first third, I saw a crack in the wrapper near the foot; it caused a slight canoe until I was able to burn past it, but after that I had no burn line problems. The draw was great and the ash was mostly solid.

Value

The price on the Amazon Basin is pretty good, especially considering the small-batch nature of the cigar.

Conclusions

The CAO Amazon Basin is indeed a unique entry in the cigar industry and completely worth trying out at least once. I can’t say I loved it, but I did like it quite a bit and wouldn’t mind having a few more around to see how they do over time. This is a cigar that may never come around again, due to the incredible supply constraints on the particular tobacco varietal that makes it possible. So if you see some…pick one up and give it a try.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10