Vitola: Toro
Size: 6″ x 52 ring gauge
Price $14.50
Purchased at Maxamar’s Cigars
Background
Today I’ll be looking at the second installment in the Craft Series by Viaje. This series is said to be inspired by the craft beer industry and will be a “multi-factory ongoing journey into tobacco.” These cigars came packed in 10 count boxes with a free state MSRP of $11. They are comprised of a filler and binder from Nicaragua with a Mexican San Andres wrapper. They were produced at the TABSA factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. I don’t know how many were produced but it was a limited amount since I’m not able to find many places with it in stock at the moment. This was my second experience smoking one of these cigars.
Prelight
As with the previous release most of the cigars is covered by silver foiled paper with a band holding it in place. This cigar did come cellophaned unlike the first one, which had some issues with damage from what I saw. After you take the band and paper off you see a very nice oily, ruddy dark brown wrapper that also shows a good amount of tooth. When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give without any soft spots. When I put my nose to the wrapper I got the aroma of hay and leather with barnyard coming from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw I got an ok draw with cocoa and wood notes.
Flavor
The cigar stars off with a good amount of spice, especially on the retrohale. A short way into the cigar the flavors of chocolate, leather, earth and coffee with hints of cinnamon started to come through. There was also a sweet finish to the cigar. The cigar starts at medium-full strength. As I moved into the second third the flavors didn’t change a whole lot, and the spice was still pretty strong. At the beginning of this third it started off at the bottom end of full strength, but by the end it was firmly full strength. When I got to the final third the sweetness and spice mellowed out and more coffee, earth, leather and cocoa flavors came through. I did get a nicotine hit from it by the end of this cigar.
Construction
Surprisingly the construction on the two samples I tried was perfect, with a great draw and only a slightly wavy burn line.
Value
I like this cigar at CA prices, but I really like this cigar at the free state price.
Conclusions
I think this might be my favorite release from Viaje. The flavors didn’t change a whole lot, but they were ones that I usually enjoy. It’s strength is something that not everyone can handle, but for those of you who enjoy stronger cigars regularly, or even occasionally this would be a good cigar to try. Unfortunately they are a little hard to get at the moment, but if you like a stonger cigar I’d pick up a 5 pack if you can find one. You can find other Viaje cigars at SmallBatchCigar.com.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10
