Vitola: Torpedo- 6” x 52 ring gauge
- MSRP $9
- Provided by Caoba Cigars
Background
About a month ago I received an email from Mr. Adam Zubar asking if I would like to try the Caoba Cigar line. I honestly had never heard of the brand before, but I’m always willing to try out something new and different. He sent me a sampler of 5 cigars representing a cross-section of the company’s product line.
Caoba is a Dominican brand that is just starting to get into the US marketplace with their sticks. Their website is in Spanish, but Google Translate did at least a fair job of telling the story. Don Julio Pérez Gonzáles started Caoba in 1992 in a small factory called Tabacalera Caoba, located in Villa Faro, part of East Santo Domingo on the south cost of the DR. The next generation of the family moved the factory to Ciudad Colonial, though they have maintained the original philosophy of “quality is our main objective.”
I used to do single-stick reviews a lot, but over the past few years, I have gone more with a “try it a time or two, then decide to review it, so it’s really a 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) stick sampling that I am reviewing.” I’m taking a step back this time around since I only received one of each stick…but honestly, each stick should either have a flavor I enjoy or not, so single-stick reviews are not that bad. Bottom line…most consumers are going to buy a cigar one time and if they don’t like it, they won’t buy it again…single-stick reviews work the same way. I will try to make some allowances for poor combustion performance in a single stick, but flavor is flavor, especially for cigars that have had a month to stabilize in my humidor.
So that’s what we’ll be looking at for this series of reviews. Today I’m smoking the Caoba Oro, a Connecticut Shade wrapped cigar with Dominican filler and binder.
Prelight
The band is basic, not great, but far from the worst I’ve seen. It’s mostly black with gold foil trim, art, and type. The cigar itself was a little worrying to look at from the beginning. The wrapper leaf was not a solid shade of gold from top to bottom. The part wrapped around the foot had a duskier shade to it and it got progressively lighter as it wound its way to the top. There was at least one green spot on the leaf and the torpedo tip was not even in its taper. It might sound like I’m being hard on the cigar, but there are just a lot of flaws that you don’t normally see anymore…stuff that a company could probably get away with in the boom of the ‘90s or even the early to mid-2000s. Quality control has come a long way, though; I don’t expect everyone to be Davidoff, but I have to admit that for $9, I’m expecting a bit more.
The wrapper leaf had a clean grassy aroma to it, while I got more grass, some earth and some cedar from the foot. The prelight draw was slightly snug and I got flavors of Dominican earth and bread.
Flavor
Lighting up, I got mild grassiness at first, followed by a graham cracker note that was basically bread with a bit of sweetness. Earth and cedar followed closer to the finish, but it was a very creamy, mild smoke. The retrohale had mustiness and wood notes with a very slight pepper burn. Interestingly in the first few minutes off this cigar I identified things that I’ve tasted before in cigars by Davidoff, Fuente and GTO. In other words, it’s definitely Dominican in origin. As I got near the end of the first third, I opted to clip a little more off the tip, rewarding me with a much freer draw and greater smoke production as I moved into the next third.
Burning through the second third, I noted that the body of the cigar picked up very slightly, from a straight mild to a “mild-plus,” really. The sweeter notes of graham diminished and were replaced by a more substantial earthiness. The retrohale was more woody than before, with a slight roasted nut note.
In the last third, I got a little more graham along with the earthiness, and the creaminess of the Connecticut Shade wrapper came into play a little more again.
Construction
I had a good draw, even burn line and solid ash.
Value
The experience of the cigar lives up to the price tag.
Conclusions
The Caoba Oro is a nice, fairly standard, old-school Dominican cigar. At the end, I would have to say it was closer to a Fuente Chateau line than anything else I’ve had, with just a little more sweetness and the occasional mustiness in the mix. It was good, but this really isn’t my normal wheelhouse, so I can’t say I was blown away by it. I would say this is a good cigar for beginning smokers or for those who really enjoy a mild Dominican smoke.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8/10
