Cigar Review: Viaje Stuffed Turkey White Meat

Vitola: Robusto Gordo
Size: 5″ x 58 ring gauge
Price $10.99
Purchased at Maxamar’s

Background

This past weekend Maxamar’s had a Viaje event where Andre was there to show off his new releases.  And since Thanksgiving is tomorrow I thought it appropriate to review one of the Stuffed Turkey line.  The Stuffed Turkey line started out as part of the White Label Project (from what I can gather at the behest of Jerry Cruz of Stogie Review) but this year it has been made into an annual production release.  The size did change slightly from 60 ring gauge to 58 ring gauge.  Andre said that this made the flavor better by doing this.  This cigar is a Nicaraguan puro with a filler and binder of Nicaraguan Aganorsa with the wrapper a Nicaraguan Criollo.  They come packed in packed in boxes of 25.  This was my first experience smoking this year’s cigar.

Prelight

You can definitely tell what this cigar is by the band.  It clearly lets you know you’re going to be lighting up a Stuffed Turkey.  It doesn’t say which blend it is but it is pretty clear from the wrapper (at least when you compare them side by side) which one this is.  The wrapper on this cigar is a nice even medium brown with some almost reddish golden highlights to it.  There was some oils to the wrapper as well as a slight amount of tooth.  When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm and had no soft spots.  Putting my nose to the wrapper I could detect a light aroma of leather with some light barnyard coming from the foot.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got a good draw with the taste of cinnamon and sugar.

Flavor

The cigar starts off with some spice, but not the normal blast of spice I usually get from a Viaje cigar.  The cigar also exhibits flavors of leather, earth and hints of roasted nuts with a slightly sweet finish.  Towards the end of the first third the spice had built a bit as well as I started to get some green herbal notes from it.  The first third started off in the upper end of the medium strength range.  As I moved into the second third the spice did start to die down a bit.  The flavors changed slightly to earth, leather, wood with some light cinnamon with a sweet finish.  The cigar stayed pretty much at the upper end of medium.  As I got into the final third the spice did start to come back to a point stronger than the first third.  The flavors changed slightly again to maple, leather and nuts with a much more intense sweetness on the finish.  I did start to get a slight nicotine hit from hit by the end of the cigar.  By the end it had moved into the medium-full range.

Construction

The draw on this cigar was absolutely perfect throughout the entire cigar.  It drew easily and produced a large volume of smoke.  The burn had gotten pretty uneven by the end of the first third and needed some touch-up from the lighter.  It still needed some help from the lighter in the second third to try and burn straight.  By the final third it has almost evened out.  This crooked burn didn’t cause any problems it is more of an OCD thing on my part.

Value

I know this is a limited release and limited production cigar so $11 isn’t too bad.  Although it is more than I’d like to pay.

Conclusions

Overall I did enjoy this cigar.  It was something that would be a great before Thanksgiving dinner cigar.  It was a bit different then a lot of the other Viaje limited edition cigars I’ve tried in that it was a medium-full cigar and where the spice didn’t overwhelm the flavors.  I do think that this cigar will be approachable by most other than the most nicotine sensitive.  I will be picking a couple more of these up to have for the future.  If you’d like to give these a try our sponsor has them in stock as well as some other Viaje releases here.

By-The-Numbers

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