Vitola: Corona- 6” x 44 ring gauge
- MSRP ~$11
- Purchased at Burns Tobacconist
Background
Several months ago I did my first review of a Dapper Cigars product, La Madrina, which I picked up at Maxamar (Small Batch’s B&M home) in Orange, California. I thoroughly enjoyed that stick and wanted to get back to reviewing other offerings from the company, but just didn’t around to ordering some. As luck would have it, a customer at the store where I work started a cigar club around the first of the year, with the goal of having a “mystery cigar” at every monthly meeting. This lent itself to the store being able to order and test out something new on an audience that should be very receptive. Dapper’s Cubo Claro was selected as the June cigar club cigar and I picked up a couple samples so I could write a review on it.
Cubo Claro was the first blend made by Dapper and was wrapped in a Connecticut Shade leaf as a tribute to the cigar the owner’s father smoked “every evening after a long days’ work.” Aside from the Ecuadorian Connecticut desflorado wrapper, the rest of the cigar is Nicaraguan with a binder from Jalapa and fillers from Condega and Esteli. They are produced in 6 sizes—3 regular production and 3 limited production. The Corona that I’m reviewing is part of the limited production collection.
This review is based on the second cigar of this blend that I smoked; I bought them both at Burns Tobacconist in Chattanooga. Leaf Enthusiast sponsor, Small Batch Cigar, carries these on a regular basis.
Prelight
The boxes are plain wood and very traditional. The bands remind me a bit of some of those adorning Warped brand cigars, although this tends to be cleaner and more coherent than some of those (Flor de Valle and Hacienda, I’m talking about you). The centerpiece is a mission-style bell-tower with “Cubo” below it and doves and crowns flanking the sides.
The wrapper leaf was a golden brown color and very nice looking. There was some slight puckering in places where the leaf was stretched, but overall it looked good and smooth. It had an oilier feel than I normally notice on Connecticut Shade, but part of that could be the fact that it’s a desflorado leaf, meaning that they remove the flower from the top of the plant, forcing it to push more nutrients into the leaves. This is said to result in stronger, more flavorful tobacco…I would guess it means oilier, as well.
The wrapper had a strong earth and natural tobacco aroma with just touches of cedar and hay that I normally associate with this type of leaf. The foot of the stick had a rich earthiness, with a bit of sweet chocolate aroma. After cutting, the prelight draw was excellent and tasted of sweet hay, oak and white chocolate with just the slightest peppery burn left on the lips.
Flavor
Once fired up, the Cubo Claro had solid notes of earth and cedar, overlaying a sweet grassiness and white pepper. The retrohale had a slightly hotter pepper burn, along with more cedar. The initial draw was excellent and body was in the mild-to-medium range. After a few minutes a little more pronounced sweetness started to emerge—a sweet citrus. Before the first third was over the body actually fell a bit into the mild range as notes of hay and citrus took over, pushing earth and wood notes to supporting roles.
The second third had a resurgence of cedar and earth notes, with them hitting in that order rather than the other way around early in the first third. Body also bumped back up a little bit and there was an increase in the sweetness and more of a chocolate note about it.
The last third of the Cubo Claro was spicier with a red pepper flake contrasting nicely with the sweeter chocolate and citrus notes, while earth and cedar fell back down to solid supporting notes.
Construction
I had a very good draw, very even burn line and solid ash throughout.
Value
As with many boutique brands, the price is a little higher than average, but this is a solidly good stick so it justifies the expense.
Conclusions
I found the Cubo Claro to be a very nice mild-to-medium Connecticut Shade with a really nice complexity, although to really appreciate it you should just sit and enjoy rather than trying to do something else at the same time. It has subtleties and richness like Davidoff White Label, although not quite at that level, so do as I say: kick back, relax and enjoy.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10
