Review Notes: awesome looking cigar. the perfect maduro. little rough spots was the only reason it got a 9 in this category. dark as night and very oily. little hard to clip but it lit and burned pretty good. tons of smoke. i'm a fan of the brazilia and this reminded of that. however, i would put this ahead of the brazilia. they both have similar flavors: mostly pepper, some wood, coffee, little chocolate, but the CAO maduro was just toned down on the spice and pepper. i like the pepper flavor but sometimes it hits me too hard with the brazilia, especially the piranha. it was a lot easier picking up flavors than the brazilia mostly because people look for spice in the brazilia, and the pepper just overpowers everything. i played with the smoke a lot more (swishing it around, holding it in, blowing through the nose) than i would have with a brazilia. more spice than a LGCR or onyx reserve but it doesn't punch you in the face like the brazilia. i really liked that in this cigar. started out slow, and i thought this cigar wouldn't show me much, but it evened out and gave me some good flavors and depth. solid smoke indeed.