Vitola: Belicoso- 5.5” x 60 ring gauge
- MSRP ~$12.95
- Sample provided by the company
Background
Welcome back to part 3 (of 4!) of my look at the four inaugural blends from Serino Cigars in their premium cigar lines. If you haven’t looked at the other entries already, I invite you to take a look at the Royale Connecticut and Royale Medio reviews when you get a chance. Today I will be taking a longer look at the Royale Maduro and I get to repeat…and add to…something I said in the last review. The Conny was a Torpedo…the Medio was a Gordo…and I don’t care for either a pointed tip on a cigar or a big ring gauge…so I have to admit I was less than thrilled with seeing a 60 ring gauge Belicoso for this review. However, the Medio was pretty great in the end, so that gave me hope for this one.
As with the other blends in the series, Carson Serino worked with Omar González Alemán, a master Cuban cigar blender who oversaw the process, from seedlings, to curing, to fermentation, aging and rolling. The Royale Maduro uses Nicaraguan filler and binder leaves, along with an Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro wrapper.
The Serino Cigars company sent me a single sample of each blend for review purposes. I got some of my background information from Will Cooper’s wonderful news article on the company.
Prelight
Where the Connecticut had a white box and the Medio had a bright blue one, the Royale Maduro comes in a red box. That color-coding is the point of differentiation for the four blends, as they all use the same primary band. Each does have its own foot band, but the color of each is identical again, so it’s hard to tell them all apart at a glance. As stated before, the design of the bands is very nice and rich looking.
The wrapper leaf is either “Maduro” if you follow the name or “Oscuro” if you follow the “parts list” of what the cigar is built from. In my experience these two types of wrapper are not the same, but I guess some people hold to different traditions. I’ve been taught that “Maduro” is really a process that “ripens” the tobacco through longer fermentation at higher temperatures, while “Oscuro” can come about through several processes, but the end result of any of them won’t be as sweet as a Maduro leaf. To my eyes, this wrapper does appear more “Oscuro” than “Maduro”…it had a dark chocolate brown color with slight mottling and a highly oily sheen. The aroma of sweet hay and leather is somewhat familiar from other Ecuadorian Habano wrappers I’ve put my nose to. The foot of the stick was earthy, with notes of cedar.
The cold draw of this stick was very good. I got cold flavors of dried berries, leather, and earth.
Flavor
Despite the large ring gauge, the Serino Royale Maduro was pretty easy to get fired up. Initial flavors were of cedar and earth, with faint touches of leather and a vague sweetness. There were some peppery notes on the finish and even more on the retrohale. Along with the spice on the nose, I got a nice smooth nuttiness.
As I got into the second third, the cedar flavor stayed pretty steady but earthiness declined a bit, replaced by more hay notes. Maybe it’s all just semantics, but this blend definitely hit me as more “Oscuro” than “Maduro” in its flavor profile.
The last third started off much the same, with cedar and hay. After getting a little further into it, more earth started coming back and pepper spice saw a resurgence.
Construction
Construction was superb. I had a very good draw, an ash that held steady for up to an inch and an even enough burn line.
Value
This was a good stick, but I would have trouble paying $13 for it.
Conclusions
I found the Serino Royale Maduro to be a very nice cigar and a solid smoking experience, but it didn’t have anything in the way of a “wow” factor that I look for in a cigar that starts north of the $10 a stick demarcation line. It was earthy and spicy, medium to full in body and fairly full in flavor, but there are quite a few cigars in the same general category, but several dollars less in price, that I would reach for first.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 8.5/10
