Vitola: Robusto
Size: 5″ x 50 ring gauge
Price $11.99
Purchased at Maxamar’s Cigars
Background
Today I’ll be taking a look at the second installment in the Master-Built Series from Camacho. This is the follow up to the American Barrel Aged cigars from last year. These cigars are reported to be constructed with a new proprietary method that combines Dominican accordion style bunching with Cuban entubado style bunching. These cigars are comprised of fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, with a double binder of Honduran corojo and Mexican San Andres negrito with an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. They come 3 sizes: robusto, toro and toro gordo and range in MSRP from $11-13. According to Camacho “Each Powerband cigar is built to capture the rush of adrenaline, force of acceleration and blast of endorphins felt barreling down the open road full tilt on an iconic V-twin motorcycle.” This was the second one of these I smoked.
Prelight
The wrapper on this sample was a nice chestnut brown in color, with some lighter golden streaks to it. There were also lots of oils and tooth to it, something I’ve come to expect from Ecuadorian habano wrappers. The slightly smaller that normal main band is decorated with slogans about how this cigar is supposed to make you feel. The foot band is clear on what the blend name is. When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give without any soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got some heavy hay and leather, with barnyard coming from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got a good draw with a light flavor of balsa wood.
Flavor
It starts off with a good amount of sweetness on the tongue. After a few puffs the spice on the tongue and retrohale also come though. I did also note the flavors of leather, wood and bbq in the first third. The cigar starts off medium-full in strength. As I moved into the second third the sweetness built with the spice diminishing. The flavors I noted during this third were copper, earth, leather and some green herbs. The strength stayed medium-full. Once I got into the final third the spice did start to come back along with the strength building to the bottom end of full. The flavors changed slightly to leather, wood, earth, copper all with the heavy sweet finish.
Construction
The draw was pretty much perfect throughout. The burn line was a little uneven but nothing to complain about.
Value
While $11 for a Camacho might seem like a lot the limited nature does count for some of that.
Conclusions
This cigar was definitely a lot sweeter than I’m used to getting from a Camacho cigar, and that is a good thing. While it was fairly strong I didn’t think it reached the power level of their corojo or triple maduro lines. I don’t think this would be a regular for me, it would be something I’d pick up a couple to have once in a while.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10
