Cigar Review: Tierra Volcán

Vitola: Corto (Short Robusto)
Size: 4” x 50 ring gauge
Price ~$6
Purchased at Maxamar

Background

Tierra Volcán is a recent addition to the U.S. cigar market from a parent company that operates as Mombacho S.A. in Canada and other countries (Mombacho is apparently already trademarked by someone else in the U.S. so you’re unlikely to hear it used much). The Tierra Volcán is a Nicaraguan puro, made in Granada, Nicaragua. This blurb is from the company’s website:

The world’s most memorable cigar experience works in concert with Mombacho’s vision to produce the world’s most memorable boutique cigar. One cannot exist without the other. It is this vision that drives Master Blender Claudio Sgroi and his team of rollers at Casa Mombacho to craft products of the highest caliber, made completely by hand “Totalmente a Mano”. From the Clasico, to the Corto, the entire Tierra Volcán Family of products are in a class all alone.

The blend is available in 3 “regular” vitolas, as well as a 6-pack of “Volcanito” small cigars. They have partnered with RoMa Craft to distribute the cigars throughout the United States and they have begun to make their way to stores recently. I purchased this review sample when I was in California in last month; Skip Martin of RoMa was at Maxamar for an event and these were featured as well. Maxamar’s online sales arm, Small Batch, is also featuring 5-packs of this blend and vitola for $30, so if you’d like to try them, click HERE.

Prelight

I like to see something unique in terms of marketing when new cigars debut. The banding on these is definitely different from others on the shelf. The design, font usage, colors and die cut definitely speak to a more modern expression but still keeping fairly simple and clean, which is important. The only quibble I have is that the brown color on the primary band tends to blend in with the color of the wrapper leaf; a bit of lighter brown as used on the secondary band might have made for a little better look.

The color of the wrapper was dark chocolate brown with a very little bit of darker mottling and just a couple medium sized veins in evidence. The look and feel were quite oily and the aroma of the wrapper was sweet with touches of chocolate. I got more sweetness on the foot, mixed with a rich earthiness. Once clipped the Tierra Volcán had a pleasant mix of sweet cocoa, slight red pepper burn, earth and natural tobacco.

Flavor

The first question I always ask myself (or a company rep if there’s one nearby) when I see a new cigar on the market it “How is this different or unique?” Especially in these days when so many Nicaraguan puros (or near-puros) are hitting the shelves…how is this different from the other Nica blends already sold? From the very start, the Tierra Volcán showed a unique flavor profile, mixing vegetal, natural tobacco notes with the more typical Nicaraguan flavors of dry cocoa powder, earth and pepper spice. Yes, those traditional Nica-notes were there, but wrapped up in that more vegetal tobacco flavor, it made for a very interesting experience. On the not-so-good side, the cigar didn’t produce a huge amount of smoke without frequent puffing on it; it produced so little when resting on my ashtray that I thought it might very well go out. Puffing more made the cigar burn too hot, though, so I was going to have to monitor progress very closely. I found a good balance soon and the flavor fell back into line after the overheating issue.

With construction issues passed, the body picked up considerably in the second third, from strictly medium to the body end of full-bodied. I got more of the same natural tobacco notes up front along with a sweet chocolate note underneath and a nice pepper burn on the finish and on the nose.

The last third showed the potential of this blend, with the sweet chocolate flavors coming to the forefront and the pepper spice burning more than ever. Underneath were the notes of rich, fermented tobacco and earth.

Construction

Turns out the problem with burn I had in the first third was a large void in the bunch, revealed when I tapped off ash for the first time. While not something you see extremely frequently, it can be a major issue when it does happen to you. Besides that, the burn line was mostly even and the ash was solid when I tapped it off.

Value

The price is nice, especially for a small-volume company.

Conclusions

The Tierra Volcán was a very pleasant full-bodied smoke with a rich flavor profile once I got past the single construction problem. It wasn’t the most complex Nicaraguan cigar I’ve experience, but it was good throughout and approaching great toward the end. The low price makes it easy to recommend to anyone who favors Nicaraguan blends.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10