Cigar Review: Submission Series by Rebellious Cigars

by David Jones · August 29, 2013

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

Triangle (Toro), 6” x 50 ring gauge

I was pleased to meet a couple of the fellows behind the Rebellious Cigars brand earlier this month at the 3rd Annual Chattanooga Tweet-Up and Cigar Festival. James Anderson had contacted me earlier in the year about sponsoring and had also sent a few cigars over for reviewing purposes. I reviewed the Signature Series earlier this year. James came to our event along with Sean Porter and their respective wives, and the brought along their newly released Maduro cigar, known as the Submission Series. And that’s where things get interesting and I get to tell a story…the Submission Series uses a “Mixed-Martial Arts” (MMA) theme, so all the cigars are named after submission holds. The Robusto is a Kimura, the Toro that I’m smoking for this review is a Triangle, and the 660 is a Guillotine; the suggested retail prices for the line will be between $7.50 and $9.95. The cigars are made by Toraño in their American Caribbean facility in Estelí, Nicaragua and the blending was done by Felipe Sosa. The filler consists of Dominican, Nicaraguan and Colombian leaf; it has an Ecuadorian binder; and a sungrown Nicaraguan wrapper. I had one of these during the Tweetup and saved another for this review done a few weeks after; both cigars were provided by Rebellious Cigars.

Right off, I think this cigar will have more shelf appeal to a wide range of smokers. It’s not at all a new look, but silver foil on a black background is just a classy way to go. It picks up the light and catches your eye as you walk through a humidor. In this case, the art itself is very well done, too. The look of Old South meets Old West works better in this color scheme than it did on the Signature Series (tip of the hat to James’ wife, Kate, who designed the artwork). Getting past the band, the wrapper leaf was dark chocolate in color with a rough toothiness under my fingers and a bit of oily sheen. The aroma from it was earthy and leathery; on the foot, I got an aromatic mix of wet earth, wood, and vegetation. I took my normal straight cut with my favorite Xikar Xi Series cutter and the resulting draw was very good. Cold flavors were sweet with notes of raisin and anise.

The foot toasted up nice and quickly and it wasn’t long before I was puffing right along. The Rebellious Submission Series opened with flavors of earth and anise, along with secondary cedar and tea notes and a rather understated sweetness. As I exhaled, I reflected on the fact that this was the first “full review” I had undertaken since the Tweet-Up. Between the over-fried palate and extraordinary fatigue, I wasn’t in any shape to review a cigar for most of the first week after the event. That week and the next I played catch-up on many things and still didn’t really feel like committing the time and mental resources to the task. But here I am back on the job again, and I have to say I picked a good cigar for the occasion. Although this didn’t taste really anything like the “Maduro” flavor I had been having a lot of recently (I’ve been on a bit of a Broadleaf Bender), it wasn’t overpowering in body (about medium, maybe medium-plus) and had enough sweetness to seem like a Maduro. What I was really enjoying, though, was the balance and complexity of the smoke at the beginning. There was a lot going on and nothing really overpowered any of the other flavor notes.

As I eased into the second third I noticed the flavors of anise picking up a bit and some raisiny sweetness as well. The tea note was still there and the earthy flavor was reduced to a secondary note. The cedar was almost gone. There was a bit of a pepper spice hit on the retrohale the whole time so far, but nothing too searing. Construction looked excellent so far; the draw was great, the burn line needed only a couple minor touch-ups and the ash hadn’t been flaky at all.

In the final third, earthier flavors took the lead for the Rebellious Submission, with a dark roast coffee being the most substantial. The anise ebbed away and the dried fruit sweetness was an afterthought before the cigar was reduced to ash, but there was an increase in pepper spice on the palate, too. In the end, I enjoyed the Submission a lot. It wasn’t as sweet as would prefer through the end, but overall it was a very pleasant smoke. It ended medium to full in body and medium-plus in strength. I would feel very comfortable submitting to many more of these cigars in the future.