Cigar Review: Roberto P. Duran

Cigar: Roberto P. Duran (Premium)
Size: 6×56 (Tainos)
Wrapper: Ecuador Habana Criollo
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan and other Latin American tobaccos
Price: $11.00 MSRP
Samples provided by Gabriel Piñeres of Creativas Group.

I always look forward to trying cigars unfamiliar to me. Between my day job and my evening music schedule, I usually don’t have much time in the evenings or weekends to be visiting my favorite cigar shops in the area. So when the opportunity arose to sample and review the namesake of the Roberto P. Duran cigar company, I was excited to give it my thoughts. Roberto Pelayo Duran’s experience in the cigar world comes from 20 years in representing other companies throughout the world. From the contacts and friends he has made in that time, he called on them to assist him in creating his own brand of cigars.

I noticed four tiny holes within the wrapper during my pre-light examination but no other appearance anomalies or other issues such as overpacking were detected. Mild leather and hay were the predominant pre-light notes. When I went to punch the cigar, the wrapper just below the cap cracked a bit under the pressure of the punch. My light of the cigar gave a balanced draw with opening notes of spice and pepper with ligher notes of leather on the back of the palette. The spice and pepper notes, tell-tale flavors coming from Nicaraguan tobacco, only lasted for five minutes before fading away, leaving the leather notes for the first third of the cigar. This is right down the middle medium bodied. With the leather notes left, the opening smoking time of the cigar is very smooth and pleasant and really stayed that way until the last third of the cigar where it increased to medium-to-full bodied. The leather notes that started the cigar turned up in intensity to finish out the smoking time of the cigar. Total time was 1:34.

While I enjoyed the flavor profile of the cigar, I encountered numerous construction issues with the cigar. I noted the tiny holes in the cigar and the wrapper cracking pre-light. Just after a third into the cigar, my burn got heavily lopsided that needed a couple relights for correction. At the midway point, the cigar went out on me a couple times adding to the relights once again and the wrapper was starting to crack just above the burn line. By the last third, the wrapper came clear off the binder (still smoked fine and tasted good), which is how I finished out the cigar.

By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 1/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 0.5/1
Total: 7.5/10

To recap the Roberto P. Duran:

• The cigar gives a perfect example of a medium bodied smoke, giving nice flavor variance that would appeal to all levels of smokers.
• If it weren’t for the construction issues, I would have rated the cigar in the 8.5 to 9 range.
• At $11 MSRP, this is barely out of my normal comfortable price range ($8-10). That’s not to say I wouldn’t buy it but I would be considering other options first.

Maybe it was a dud cigar I smoked or maybe my humidor wasn’t properly humidified, I don’t know. Out of fairness, I will be re-approaching this cigar again soon to give a second take on this one. Look for that report in the coming weeks. And finally, I would like to thank Gabriel Piñeres of the Creativas Group for the samples of the Roberto P. Duran and look forward to seeing it in local shops in the future.

As always, thank you very much for reading and I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.