Cusano MC Robusto (5x50) Review

[CSmith]

Context:
After digesting and relaxing and laying around with us for a while after Thanksgiving dinner, our dog started getting restless. My dad and I decided to take her on a walk and on the way out I grabbed the only matched pair of sticks I had left - Cusano MCs. We got Maxie leashed up, the cigars cut and lit, and off we went.

Pre-Light
These feel quite a bit spongier than most of the cigars I've had, but they smelled amazing and the prelight draw seemed kind of loose (more on that later) but also got my hopes up for some really sweet flavors. My dad, though not a regular smoker, made comments to the same effect.

Smoke
Maybe it was the fact that we were walking or the cold air (right around 30º with winds between 5 and 10 mph), but the draw on both cigars was incredibly loose. If felt like there was absolutely no resistance whatsoever; honestly if it wasn't for the plume of smoke, I would have thought I was just breathing through a large straw that happened to be made of tobacco leaves. Being that I also smoke a cigarette or two each day, I was having a hard time remembering not to inhale. Normally this wouldn't bug me, but plus coughing does not equal fun, and it made it nearly impossible to not smoke too fast. Both my dad an I had some problems with tunneling. I won't necessarily fault the cigar, though, because of the context in which it was had.

On the good side, the flavors were quite nice. The sweetness I expected was there, but not in any convoluted guise of chocolate, hickory, yada yada yada. It was just a very nice, sweet tobacco flavor that I enjoyed quite a bit. There wasn't a lot of complexity either - everything was consistent all the way down the stick. The only exception I noted was some bitterness that popped up right after it ashed each time, but one quick purge and we were back to good.

For those of you who like knowing about what the ash did - it held up pretty nicely considering we were walking and with the wind. I'll estimate it at usually about an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter. No idea how it looked, I wasn't really paying attention to it.

I had to drop it with a little over an inch left after the the smoke really started burning my tongue. My dad did the same thing.

Overall
I'm going to refrain from giving it any kind of harsh criticism, glowing review, or numerical rating for now. I don't think I should judge it without giving it another shot just sitting down and enjoying it - mostly I want to see if there were actual construction issues or if it was more "operator error." What I will say for now is that it tasted nice, but probably isn't a good "on-the-go" cigar.

I'll pick one or two more up later this week, give them a few week or two's rest, try again in my backyard, and let you guys know how that goes.