Cigar Review: Blind Man’s Bluff Corona by Caldwell Cigars

• Vitola: Corona Gorda
• 5.75” x 46 ring gauge 
• $7.49
• Samples provided by Burns Tobacconist

Background

It was just over 2 months ago that I published my review of the Robusto vitola of the Blind Man’s Bluff. I was quite surprised that a Honduran-heavy blend could be as tasty as the BMB proved to be…although in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have been that surprised, since this was made at the Camacho factory…home to some fantastic smokes.

Now a new chapter in the story can be told…Burns Tobacconist (my home away from home where I work full-time) has become the sole purveyor of the BMB blend in a Corona Gorda size. The blend remains the same…Honduran Criollo Generoso and Dominican San Vicente for the filler, Honduran Criollo binder and Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. What is different is the length and ring gauge…and since I’m a fan of smaller ring gauge smokes, this is really a natural for me. “We own the night!”…indeed!

This review is based on my second smoking of this vitola…both samples were given to me by the owner of Burns. Yes, I do work there…but I also liked this blend from the beginning, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I should be the one who does this review. I will still be honest in my assessment. The first piece of honesty I’m going to bring forth is that I only waited a few days after the cigars arrived in Chattanooga before working on this review. I usually prefer to let the cigars rest at least a couple weeks, but I did already smoke one and it was excellent, so I decided to go ahead with the review. If it changes up significantly after resting a couple months, I might do a revisit in the form of a Cigar Extra piece.

Prelight

I have nothing really to add to my prelight assessment from the earlier review…it’s cool, it’s weird, unsurprisingly, the Corona Gorda band is the exact same as the others. The wrapper leaf had the same light brown color, oily touch and ripe grassy/earthy aroma to it. The foot had touches of coffee in the mix, as well as the barnyard notes from the previous review. What I didn’t get as much was cedar or wood aromas. It could be that the reduced ring gauge makes other aromas pop more…could just be that these just finished their long journey from Honduras to Chattanooga about 3 days previous to this review.

Both samples of BMB CG I smoked had a very good cold draw. I tasted earth and grass notes, in addition to touches of dried fruit sweetness and mineral metallic twang.

Flavor

Light-up was quick and easy and right from the beginning there were strong flavors of cedar, hay and earth. The finish had a bold pepper spice note with the spice coming through even stronger on the retrohale. To me, the pepper on the palate was stronger with this vitola than with the Robusto I previously reviewed, but that’s not totally surprising…much of that pepper probably comes through from the wrapper, which is more prominent in the blend here. After a few puffs, some of the natural sweetness started to come through as well…though more sweet hay here than the dried fruit I got on the slightly larger ring gauge.

Besides the more prominent pepper spice in this size, I found the body to be a little fuller. On the Robusto, I want to say it was straight-ahead medium, maybe medium-plus at the end, but this one started at medium-plus and was at the medium-to-full stage by the time the second third started. The flavor profile here was mostly earthy with an undercurrent of charred meat, which was kind of opposite of the larger ring gauge. Loads of pepper spice was still evident.

The meaty flavors held sway in the final third, with copious helpings of earth and pepper spice still hanging on. There was enough underlying sweetness to provide an excellent balance to the whole thing.

Construction

I had to touch up the burn line a couple times, but nothing serious. The draw was fantastic the entire way and the ash was never flaky.

Value

The price on these is great for the experience they deliver.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed the Robusto size of the Blind Man’s Bluff when it debuted a couple months back. I have to say that even with an identical rating, I enjoyed this Corona Gorda vitola even more…I guess that’s the weakness inherent in only being able to round up or down to half-points on this scale. This stick isn’t a true “perfect 10” at this point, but it might be given a couple months on the shelf and a little extra time. As it is they delivered to the store ready to smoke and be enjoyed (thanks to some apparent box problems that delayed shipping an extra month or more). You can be skeptical because of my job at Burns, but if you liked the BMB already, this vitola is definitely box-worthy.

By-The-Numbers

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

As mentioned a couple times, Burns Tobacconist is the ONLY place in the world to get this vitola of this cigar. Order on their website and use the Coupon Code BMB4LE and they will take another 10% off a box purchase, for a total of 20% off the full price of $149.80. Free shipping over $100, too, so that will make your price-per-box-of-20 $119.84.