Vitola: Box-Pressed Toro Gordo
Size: 6″ x 60 ring gauge
Price $17.99
Purchased at Maxamar’s Cigars
Background
Today I’ll be looking into the latest in the Improvisations line from Avo. This is the fifth installment of the series. The cigar is said to combine elements of the Synchro, Synchro Fogota, and the LE05. It is comprised of Nicaragua Esteli Ligero, Dominican San Vicente Ligero, Domincan San Vincente Mejorado Seco, Dominican Pilar Ligero, Dominican Piloto Seco fillers, Dominican Olor Zona 7 binder with an Ecuadorian Habano Marron Claro wrapper. The cigars come 16 to a box that is styled after a leather wrapped guitar case. The cigar is limited to 2,000 boxes in the US. This cigar was released two days before Avo passed away on March 24th at 91. This was the second cigar I was able to smoke.
Prelight
The wrapper is a peanut brown in color and it has a slight golden cast to it. It has some oils and lots of tooth, along with some medium sized veins. The box press was well executed as well. I didn’t think there was enough info on the band to let you know it was the 5th or 2017 release, but the top band did say “Improvisation” on it. The second band could have let you know where in the series it was without losing the guitar fret board look. When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give and no soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got the aroma of hay, with raisins from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw I noted some wood and sweet flavors with a good draw.
Flavor
It starts off with a good amount of spice on the tongue and retrohale that settles to wood and leather flavors after a few puffs. Towards the end of this third I also noted some green herbs and curry flavors peaking through. The cigar starts off medium strength. When I got into the second third the spice died down a lot. The flavors changed slightly to leather, wood, and earth with a sweet finish. The cigar stayed medium strength. The final third didn’t see much change in flavors. The spice built up a bit though. It didn’t move out of medium strength.
Construction
The draw and burn was pretty good. Even with the slight breeze I didn’t need to correct it. However as it seems to happen with every Avo limited edition there was too much glue on both bands and both of them ripped the wrapper. I don’t know why they can’t get this right. On this one it didn’t cause too much harm but I’ve had cigars fall apart before because of this.
Value
To me this was a bit more expensive than previous limited releases of theirs.
Conclusions
This second cigar wasn’t as flavorful or as enjoyable as the first one of these I smoked. It could have been due to me recovering from a cold and not being able to taste everything there. Or it could be inconsistencies in the blend. I might give it another try because I really did enjoy the first one of these I tried. If you’d like to give it or any other Avo a try head over to our sponsor SmallBatchCigar.com.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 7.5/10
