Cigar Stars Review: Cabaiguan Guapo

[oracle202]

Image can be seen here.

Wrapper:Ecuadorian Connecticut - Sun Grown
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan

Cigar Stars Rating: 8.1

This cigar is an impressive sight at first. With a 54 ring gauge it's nice and beefy, and its pigtail cap looks as cuban as can be. Even the wrapper says "Cuba" on it, which I found to be rather misleading, if not a bit gimmicky. This cigar is built like a rock, when squeezed there's no give. The pigtail cap guillotines easily, and the foot lights up fast. However, I had some burn and burst issues with this cigar, enough so to actually bring down the score substantially. As the cigar started, it began to crack and burst under the heat. Eventually giving me two nice deep cracks running up both sides of the stick till about midway. This really annoyed me. I bought three of these from my local B&M, all from the same box, and in two out of the three the filler tobacco tried to break out in the beginning of the smoke. These factors brought the score for this cigar down almost one full point, taking it from a 9.1 to an 8.1. So I'm really hoping this isn't the fault of the cigar and maybe perhaps a humidification issue at my local store. I am going to test some more and let you know.

Taste: Mellow, smooth, yet very aromatic. This cigar tastes fantastic in my opinion. Lots of sweet tobacco, mixed with coffee notes, and a good amount of tea, with very light spicy notes on the nose. Taste-wise, this cigar pushed all the right buttons for me. The draw was a tad stiff, and the smoke was very light, but I just couldn't get over how well this cigar tasted. I'm going to try a few more before buying a box just to make sure the crack and burn issues were a fluke, and then I would happily recommend buying a box of these limited edition cigars. Perfect lunchtime smoke.