Cigar Review: Ventura Cigar Company Project805

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

Robusto, 5” x 50 ring gauge/ ~$7 MSRP

A couple weeks ago I was contacted via Twitter by Ventura Cigar Company about giving their new release, the Project805, a try. One to never turn down something free I said sure, and they sent me two samples of this cigar for review. The cigar is described has having a blend of Dominican and Andullo (an exclusive tobacco for this blend) fillers, a Dominican Olor binder, and a corojo shade wrapper.

The wrapper on this sample was an even peanut brown with a slightly reddish tint. There were some medium veins and a good amount of oils to it as well. When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm without any soft spots. After putting it to my nose I got the aroma of leather with an intense barnyard aroma on the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of sugar and coffee with a slightly tight draw.

The cigar starts off with some red pepper spice on the retrohale with tastes of leather, wood and cream on the palate. The cigar started off in the medium range in regards to strength. The draw was a bit tighter than I prefer and the burn was only slightly wavy. As I got to the end of the third I got some green herbal notes along with some cinnamon added in.

The spice mellowed out a lot as I moved into the second third, almost going away. The flavors were similar to the first third, leather, wood, and cream, with a slightly sweet finish. The slightly tight draw was helped by a little work with my Xikar MTX.

In the final third the flavors didn’t change from the previous third. The spice did start to come back a bit although the cigar never got out of the medium range.

Overall I enjoyed the cigar, even though it wasn’t as full flavored or complex as I normally like. I do think that this cigar would be a good one to pair with a cup of coffee in the morning. Since the cigar isn’t too strong it would be approachable by most anyone and the reasonable price would help that out as well.

Body: 6/10
Strength: 6/10
Complexity: 5/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10