Cigar Review: Blind Man’s Bluff by Caldwell Cigars

• Vitola: Robusto
• 5” x 50 ring gauge 
• Price $7.99
• Purchased at Burns Tobacconist

Background

Robert Caldwell has responded quickly to the adversity he has encountered in the cigar industry during his first year or so at the helm of his namesake company. He had some trouble with consistency of production at the William Ventura factory in the Dominican Republic…so he bought his own factory where he and his people can call the shots. The Junior Varsity line was dealt seemingly fatal blows when consumers reacted negatively to the name…so he made the decision to discontinue the lines and replace them with re-blended, re-packaged Iberian Express lines. And during the midst of all that he produced a new blend at a completely different factory…in a completely different country.

Blind Man’s Bluff just hit the shelves about 3 weeks ago after some major pre-release buzz during and after the IPCPR show in New Orleans. I got to try a show sample and found it definitely worthy of repeating once they shipped; I’m happy to report that they seem to be just as good—if not better—than the early samples. BMB is produced in Agroindustrias Laepe S.A. in Danli, Honduras, a factory owned by Davidoff which uses it to produce Camacho cigars.

The blend relies heavily on Honduran Criollo leaf, with that as both the binder and part of the filler. The remainder of the filler is Dominican San Vicente and the wrapper is Ecuadorian Habano. Besides the show samples, I’ve smoked one of the shipped version before this review and I bought it and this review sample at Burns.

Prelight

The banding for Blind Man’s Bluff is very much in keeping with the Caldwell “weird and inexplicable” ethic. The centerpiece of the band is a drawing of a man in a bowler hat with his eyes obscured in some way…looks like someone tried to smudge or erase them in the some versions, while other versions make it appear a heavy pencil was used to scratch lines through the eyes. The left arm of the band states the brand tagline: “We Own the Night.” The right arm of the band has “Blind Man’s Bluff” and “Danli” on it. Other marketing has such phrases as “If you’re not running with us, run from us” and “Sit around and hate and talk about your grandpa’s magic seeds” and “Grandma, I’ve been unruly.” It’s all evocative and odd and somewhat disturbing. Who is this blind man? What is he bluffing about? How has he been unruly? What are these magic seeds?

The wrapper leaf of BMB was light brown in color and fairly oily to the touch. It was smooth with no major veins coming through and had an aroma that mixed earth and hay. The aroma from the foot was more of barnyard and cedar. After cutting the head, i got a very good cold draw that had flavors of citrus, cedar, anise and earth.

Flavor

The Blind Man’s Bluff started out with a medium-plus bodied smoke that contained a good amount of oak and cedar notes, a bit of earth, and an underlying fruit sweetness. A bit of pepper spice was in evidence on the palate, but on the nose, it was a full-blown fire.

Somewhere late in the first third or early in the second, the flavor profile took a turn, developing almost grilled meat flavors. There was still earth underneath and pepper spice throughout.

The notion of meatiness dissipated before the second third was over and left the final third to be simply a very nice natural tobacco front flavor, backed with solid earth and pepper notes, all the while a nice mellow sweetness rode underneath.

Construction

The burn line had to be corrected once or twice, but nothing too major. The ash was a bit flaky at times. The draw was just about perfect.

Value

I’m not sure if this cigar is part of the “Caldwell Collection” or the “Iberian Express” line, but if it’s the former, it’s by far the lowest price one. If it’s part of the latter, it’s right in line with the other blends. Either way, it’s a very good value for such a solidly good cigar.

Conclusions

This is one of those cigars that challenged my notion of what a Honduran-heavy smoke could be. Generally, I don’t care for too much Honduran leaf in a blend, although there are a few that are very good…and at least a couple of them have come from Camacho. Using some of that same company’s product and their rollers, Caldwell has come up with an excellent addition to a catalog of cigars that was already excellent at challenging pre-conceived notions. Very good smoke and one I recommend to anyone but absolute newbies.

By-The-Numbers

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

Blind Man’s Bluff is also available at Small Batch Cigar, a sponsor of Leaf Enthusiast.