danthebugman
BoM Nov '10
Tuesday was a beautiful day. Too beautiful to pass up the chance to fire up a cigar on the deck. After digging around in the humidor I came up with this...
The La Traviata Maduro was released this past August at IPCPR and has been met with pretty good reviews. Since I'm a Maduro fiend, I was pretty excited to spark this one up. This cigar features the same blend as the original La Traviata (Nicaraguan/Dominican filler with a Cameroon binder), but sports a Connecticut Broad-leaf wrapper. And what a beautiful wrapper it is! Dark chocolate mottled with a lighter brown in places and oily as hell. There are a few larger veins present on this cigar. It feels well packed, no obvious soft spots. The cap is neatly applied and there is a strong barnyard aroma being exuded.
The cap cut easily and cleanly, leaving behind an easy draw. The pre-light flavors were of a sweet tobacco with a light spice I couldn't quite place.
The cigar lit easily and produced copious amounts of thick smoke right away. It was entertaining to watch it hang in the air for a few seconds before being carried away on the breeze. Immediately I got a nice, rich maduro flavor (almost meaty) with a light, sweet spice and coffee mixture on the retro-hale. The burn started out a little wavy, but nothing major.
The ash was a light gray color and while it didn't look particularly strong, it held well. Towards the end of the first third the maduro flavor started to transition to a more leathery flavor. The burn that started out a little wavy, has now become straight with the occasional waver here and there...those veins I talked about earlier don't seem to be causing any issues.
Into the second third the flavors have changed from a rich maduro to a mixture of leather and wood with a dry finish. There is a more floral and touch of coffee on the retro-hale now.
As I reach the point of taking off the band, I started to pick up some hints of raisins. Then not long after removing the band a rotten egg like flavor became alarmingly present. I purged which helped a little, but it was still faintly there. This is the point where I would usually put it down, but I remembered a purging technique that SuperKrishna showed Frank and I when we met at Outlaw. Basically you just light the end of the cigar when you are purging and it burns off the tar build up. I'm happy to report it worked wonders, though it was slightly scary as I didn't expect the flame that ignited to be quite as large as it was and so close to my face!
After purging the flavors were a charred wood and raisin with roasted coffee on the retro-hale. I finally put it down when it started to get hot and rotten egg flavor started to creep in again.
Overall a very tasty cigar. By far the best thing is the price! I've found boxes for just shy of $100 which equals out to about $4.00 a stick. And at that price you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. I will definitely be getting some more of these.
Dan
The La Traviata Maduro was released this past August at IPCPR and has been met with pretty good reviews. Since I'm a Maduro fiend, I was pretty excited to spark this one up. This cigar features the same blend as the original La Traviata (Nicaraguan/Dominican filler with a Cameroon binder), but sports a Connecticut Broad-leaf wrapper. And what a beautiful wrapper it is! Dark chocolate mottled with a lighter brown in places and oily as hell. There are a few larger veins present on this cigar. It feels well packed, no obvious soft spots. The cap is neatly applied and there is a strong barnyard aroma being exuded.
The cap cut easily and cleanly, leaving behind an easy draw. The pre-light flavors were of a sweet tobacco with a light spice I couldn't quite place.
The cigar lit easily and produced copious amounts of thick smoke right away. It was entertaining to watch it hang in the air for a few seconds before being carried away on the breeze. Immediately I got a nice, rich maduro flavor (almost meaty) with a light, sweet spice and coffee mixture on the retro-hale. The burn started out a little wavy, but nothing major.
The ash was a light gray color and while it didn't look particularly strong, it held well. Towards the end of the first third the maduro flavor started to transition to a more leathery flavor. The burn that started out a little wavy, has now become straight with the occasional waver here and there...those veins I talked about earlier don't seem to be causing any issues.
Into the second third the flavors have changed from a rich maduro to a mixture of leather and wood with a dry finish. There is a more floral and touch of coffee on the retro-hale now.
As I reach the point of taking off the band, I started to pick up some hints of raisins. Then not long after removing the band a rotten egg like flavor became alarmingly present. I purged which helped a little, but it was still faintly there. This is the point where I would usually put it down, but I remembered a purging technique that SuperKrishna showed Frank and I when we met at Outlaw. Basically you just light the end of the cigar when you are purging and it burns off the tar build up. I'm happy to report it worked wonders, though it was slightly scary as I didn't expect the flame that ignited to be quite as large as it was and so close to my face!
After purging the flavors were a charred wood and raisin with roasted coffee on the retro-hale. I finally put it down when it started to get hot and rotten egg flavor started to creep in again.
Overall a very tasty cigar. By far the best thing is the price! I've found boxes for just shy of $100 which equals out to about $4.00 a stick. And at that price you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. I will definitely be getting some more of these.
Dan
