Cigar Review: Añejo XO by Balmoral

• Vitola: Rothschild Masivo
• 5” x 55 ring gauge 
• MSRP $9.90
• Sample provided by Drew Estate

Background

“More than one century ago Jacques Wintermans lent 200 guilders from his father to start a cigar business.” More recently, Boris Wintermans inked a distribution deal with Drew Estate for all Royal Agio Cigar lines, including Panter, Mohair’s and Balmoral brands, starting in the first half of 2014. The Balmoral Añejo 18 showed up in Burns about a year ago and more recently we received the Añejo XO. Just a couple weeks prior to the cigar showing up in the store, I received a care package from Drew Estate with reviewable samples of many of their newer products, including this same cigar.

The box of the Añejo XO lets you know that “XO” is short for “eXceptionally Old.” How old is an unanswered question. The press release for this blend states repeatedly that the Añejo 18 used an 18-year-old Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper and that this XO release was the only thing that could be a worthy successor for that…but it doesn’t say if this wrapper is older, and if so…how much older?

Balmoral Añejo XO uses Dominican, Nicaraguan and Brazilian fillers, an “exceptionally aged” Dominican Olor binder, and the aforementioned Sungrown Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper leaf. As noted above, this sample was provided by their U.S. distributor, Drew Estate, and it is the first time I have smoked this blend.

Prelight

The Balmoral branding is an exercise in high-class. They use a restrained basically 2-color scheme of gray and cream, with marked use of gold foil and embossing for accent, then a tiny strip of red foil at the bottom of the band that becomes really striking because of its unexpected nature.

The wrapper was a dark brown with lighter coloration around the fairly sizable veins, and there was a significant amount of oils to the touch. Overall, it just looks like a more rugged, rustic wrapper than I would expect from the way the brand is presented…almost like a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper on a Davidoff white label.

Sniffing the wrapper, I got a mix of earth and cedar mostly, with just a touch of baking spice in there. The foot had more wood and a definite anise aroma. I clipped with my Xikar Xi cutter and got a very good draw afterwards. The prelight draw tasted of cocoa powder, cedar, earth and a touch of that Dominican Olor mushroom funk.

Flavor

The Añejo XO started off with fairly strong earthiness, a touch of bread and wood, some faint raisin sweetness, dry cocoa powder and just a taste of the mushroominess. The retrohale had roasted nuts, cocoa powder and pepper spice. I found the opening minutes of the cigar to be full and rich and quite complex, surely owing to the diverse blend of tobaccos as well as the aging process for some of them.

The ash held on for pretty much the entire first third. When I tipped if off and started puffing on the second third, I got a lot more cocoa powder and some chocolate sweetness, while the earth took a more secondary role and wood notes were more of a background flavor. The pepper had subsided on the nose considerably, while not going away completely.

As I worked on the final third, the flavor profile continued to be mostly cocoa powder and muted sweetness, with a backing of white pepper and mild cedar. The retrohale also had notes of white pepper, cocoa powder and roasted nuts.

Construction

As noted above, the ash was solid for an inch or more. The draw was flawless and the burn line was very straight.

Value

This is billed as a luxury brand, but it doesn’t carry a full-on luxury price…more of a “near luxury” price that makes the experience very much worth the price.

Conclusions

This Balmoral Añejo XO really surprised me with its level of refinement and depth of flavor. It was sweet and savory, woody and spicy, with a very good amount of complexity that kept my interest all the way to the end. The company noted in the press release that the Añejo 18 would be a limited edition, due to the scarcity of the tobaccos used, although the same was not said about this release. I surmise, therefore, that this is meant to be a regular release and I find that to be a very good thing…this is an excellent cigar that I’d love to have regularly.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10