Cigar Review: Eddie Ortega Wild Bunch Tony the Boss

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

Churchill, 7.5” x 49 ring gauge / $8, MSRP

Today I will be reviewing another one of the second set of Wild Bunch releases from Eddie Ortega. Like the Dandy McCoy this cigar was sent to me by Eddie to review. This cigar is comprised of Nicaraguan fillers, a Sumatra binder and an Ecuadorian wrapper. These should actually be in your stores right now as they are the April release of the series.

The wrapper on this sample was a nice peanut brown with some fine and medium veins. The wrapper was very oily with a slight amount of tooth as well. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got intense aroma of leather and cedar, with the heavy aroma of barnyard coming from the foot. When I gave it a squeeze I got a slight amount of give and there were no soft spots. After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got a great draw with a sweet woody flavor.

Lighting the cigar up took a little bit of doing but once I did I got a blast of spice on the tongue and retrohale. After a few puffs I was able to note some leather, earth, cinnamon and cream flavors as well. The draw started out great however I felt like I had to keep puffing on it to keep it lit. The spice moved to the tip of the tongue. Even though it was very spicy it really was only in the upper end of medium in regards to strength. However towards the end of the first third and a tunnel developed and I couldn’t get through it so I had to let the cigar go out and relight it.

As I moved into the second third the spice on the tongue started to fade a bit, but not go completely away. The flavors were pretty much the same as in the first third. Construction still gave me some issues as I needed to let it go out again because of the tunnel and relight it.

I really didn’t notice much change in the flavors as I got into the final third. This wasn’t a bad thing as the flavors of leather, cedar, cinnamon, earth and cream are very pleasant and enjoyable to me. The spice did start to come back and kind of overshadowed the flavors of the cigar a bit. I still had some minor issues with the draw and burn. I also noticed a slight nicotine hit from it as well.

I don’t know if the construction issues were a result of a bad light by me or something in the construction of the cigar. A tunnel for me is only surpassed in its annoyance factor by a cigar that doesn’t draw. Since I don’t know what caused this I will give another one of these a try. I do think that they will age nicely and the spice won’t overwhelm the flavors like it did for me in the final third. I will say that his was definitely different (in a good way) from the other cigars I’ve smoked from Eddie Ortega. If you can handle a bit of nicotine hit and like spice I would suggest giving it a try and seeing how it goes for you.

Body: 7/10
Strength: 8/10
Complexity: 6/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8/10