Cigar Review: Trelos Psaria

Vitola: Toro Gordo
Size: 6″ x 56 ring gauge
Price $8.00 MSRP
Obtained From Maxamar’s as a review sample

Background

A couple weeks ago Ammar and I were walking around the humidor and he asked me if I knew anything about these cigars as he just got them in.  I didn’t and did a Google search on the name and found out they were made by Quesada.  Ammar handed me one of the toro gordos and asked me to review it and let him know what I thought and found out.  In doing some research after smoking the cigar I found out that this cigar is a limited edition release between Quesada and TV personality/sport fisherman Charlie Moore.  Since I’m not much of a fisherman I had to look up who he was.  Looks like he currently hosts fishing shows on NESN and and NBC Sports.  On to the cigar.  The name Trelos Psaria means “mad fish” in Greek and is a reference to Charlie’s nickname “The Mad Fisherman”.  The cigar comes in two sizes with two distinct blends.  The first one is a 7″x56 Churchill gordo comprised of  an Ecuador Connecticut shade wrapper, Dominican binder and fillers of Connecticut Broadleaf, Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos.  The subject of this review, the toro gordo, is comprised of a Honduran Criollo wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers.  They come packed in 20 count boxes.  Each size is said to have a release of 1000 boxes.  From what I can tell these were supposed to be released last May.  I don’t know if the release was delayed or these are left over from that release.  This was the first one of these I smoked.

Prelight

The first thing I notice is the band, and not in a good way.  It looks like something that you’d find on a bargain cigar.  It simply says the cigar’s name, in black and white, on slightly shiny paper that has no depth to it.  Since this is a limited edition cigar they should have done a little more to draw your eye to it.  If I saw this in the humidor I’d pass it by.  In spite of the cheap looking band the wrapper is a nice medium brown in color with hints of red with some darker mottling.  There are a good amount of oils and some light tooth to the wrapper as well.  When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm without any soft spots.  When I put my nose to the wrapper I noted the aroma of barnyard with leather and hay coming from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw I noted hints of leather and sweetness with a good draw.

Flavor

It starts off with flavors of leather and tobacco with a sweet finish.  As I got a short way into I started to get some spice on the tongue and retrohale.  That spice went away as it burned through half an inch.  I did get some slight bitterness coming through after the spice died down.  Luckily it didn’t stay around much either.  Towards the end of the first third I started to get hints of cedar and cola as well.  The cigar was definitely medium strength to start.  The flavors were pretty much the same throughout the second third.  The spice did start to come back in this third as well.  However the strength didn’t climb out the medium range.  The flavor changed slightly as I moved into the final third to graham, leather, and earth with a sweet finish.  It didn’t get stronger than medium strength as I finished it off.

Construction

Throughout the cigar the draw was great.  The burn was slightly wavy but never needed a correction.

Value

A limited edition cigar with celebrity tie-in for less that $10 is a good value.

Conclusions

While there wasn’t anything wrong with the cigar it didn’t do a whole lot for me.  I don’t know if it was the cigar or that criollo tobacco doesn’t do a whole lot for me.  Since the cigar is reasonably priced I could see myself picking another one up to see if the experience is the same or different with a different cigar.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 7.5/10