Cigar Review: Nomad Cigars S-307

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online.

Toro, 6” x 50 ring gauge / $7.95, MSRP

A month or so ago Fred Rewey, aka @GodFadr, approached me about trying his new cigar. As one who likes trying new cigars I of course said I would. This cigar is their first regular production cigar out of Nicaragua. The cigar is comprised of Nicaraguan filler, an Ecuadorian Habano binder and an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper. These cigars are being made in the AJ Fernandez factory in Esteli. The cigar comes in 3 sizes that are all box pressed, a 5″x50 robusto, 6″x52 torpedo and the 6″x50 toro that I smoked for this review. I smoked two cigars (1 torpedo & 1 toro) before this cigar. I would like to thank Fred for giving me the chance to give this cigar a try.

The wrapper on this sample was a nice medium brown with some darker mottling to it. The wrapper looks like it would have had a good mount of tooth if the box pressing didn’t smash it down. This isn’t a dig to the cigar just what it looks like. There were some medium and fine veins but nothing that detracted from it. I was very glad to see the blend name on the band. That is something that bugs me about other manufacturers putting the same or almost similar bands on cigars without giving the consumer a way to differentiate them in their own mixed humidor. While I was looking the cigar over I noticed that the wrapper sparkled a bit. I don’t know if it was pieces from the silver portion of the band that had flaked off or was natural, but it did look nice. When I gave the cigar a squeeze I didn’t find any soft spots and there was a slight amount of give. As I put my nose to the wrapper I got notes of hay and leather with barnyard coming from the foot. After clipping and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of green herbal spices with a slightly sweet aftertaste with a good draw.

As soon as I lit it up I got a lot of red pepper spice on the retrohale and tongue. I could also taste the flavors of leather and cream with a hint of coffee. The draw was perfect and it produced a large volume of smoke. The burn was pretty good in spite of my bad job at lighting it. As I got to the end of the first third the spice had toned down with the flavor of sweet gingerbread starting to show up. The first third was at the upper end of medium in regards to strength.

The flavors changed a bit as I got into the second third to coffee, cream, and graham, with a sweet finish. The draw continued to be spot on and the draw had evened itself out. The cigar stayed in the medium range throughout this third.

Once I got into the final third the spice started to come back as well as I started to get a slight nicotine hit from it. I noted a lot more graham flavors in this third with some leather and cocoa with a creamy finish. The draw continued to be perfect throughout and the burn was great. The cigar finish in the medium full range in regards to strength.

While I’ve only had a couple of the original Dominican blend and one Lot 1386 (thanks to a local BOTL) I can say with ease that the S-307 is by far my favorite blend. I was very glad to hear that this will be a regular production for them. I need to pick up some more and see how they age. I’ve had some other Sumatra wrapped cigars of a similar profile age very well and my estimation that the S-307 will do so as well.

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

AFP Scale

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