Camacho Diploma Corojo Cigar Review
With just a quick glance it is fairly evident that this is not one of the best looking cigars ever made. It is dotted with a couple of pinprick-sized holes, a number of bumps that runs from foot to cap and a number of veins mixed in as well. There is not much oil covering this cigar and it feels like it may be too loosely packed; which is something that happens frequently with Camacho cigars. This cigar’s wrapper is made with corojo tobacco but also comes in a maduro (which has received some pretty bad scores).
According to the Camacho website, the Camacho Diploma is comprised solely of Cuban seed corojo tobaccos. The leaves come from the fifth priming, which is important because these are the leaves at the top of the tobacco plant and they are the ones that receive the most exposure to the sun and the elements. This means the leaves that make up this cigar should have a lot of flavor packed into them. Oh, and it should also be a full bodied cigar. Let’s see.
Cigar Stats
Length: 5″
Ring Gauge: 50
Wrapper: Honduran
Binder: Honduran
Filler: Honduran
Price: $30.50/5 Pack | $191.00/Box of 21
Contagion Conflagration!
Cutting the cigar reveals a good pre-light draw that is accompanied by a slight molasses sweetness and a mildly spicy tingle that lingers for a moment on my tongue. The smell is akin to a robust barnyard (think more hay than excrement).
Lighting the cigar confirms some of the pre-light flavors right away. Barnyard is prominent but it is perceptibly lighter than I thought it would be. Spice is evident in both the inhale and the retrohale but it is not overpowering; it is a soft and warm spicy flavor. That molasses sweetness is not present, however.
In addition to those flavors there is a strong oak presence. It starts out dark and smoky but then the oak starts to gradually become sweeter. Of course, this is no pushover of a cigar, so sweeter is a relative term.
Another flavor, which I can only identify as tobacco, is a major flavor in the beginning. I like it because it provides an edge to the flavor profile of oak and barnyard hay.
So far (about an inch in), this cigar is a very good cigar. It is a full bodied cigar with a lot of hearty flavors – I’m loving this cigar. The draw is a shade below effortless and the burn is even. Also, at around this point, a fleeting anise flavor is present on the back of the tongue. It is nice and adds to the complexity (and to my enjoyment as well).
If billowing clouds of smoke was the mark of a great cigar then this would truly be one of the best that I have ever had. While I can’t say it is one of the best that I have ever had it is still very good. The flavors are very alive and are enjoyable.
Over halfway through now and the anise flavor has only grown in prominence. That doesn’t mean it is the major flavor in this cigar, not by a long shot. The main flavor profile is still the smoky tobacco and oak mixture. Burnt hay is also a major flavor as well.
I really want to peg the Camacho Diploma as this dark and brooding cigar. One that is full of force and in-your-face flavor. But it isn’t that at all. It is much more refined than that. Yes, it has some strength to it but the flavors are a melodious mix of farm, oak, spice and a touch of sweetness.
The end of this cigar is an uninterrupted continuance of the middle segment. Barnyard flavors may increase a bit – so have the oak flavors – and the anise fades just a touch but it is basically the same. The strength has grown somewhat.
I can call this a delicious cigar. And that is what this cigar is: delicious.
91 points
Help Exempt Premium Cigars from FDA Regulation
I was alerted to this by one of my more loyal readers the other day and I think it warrants its own post. As many of you know, there is a chance that the FDA will unilaterally start regulating premium cigars in a manner that would throw the industry on its head. What follows is an explanation of what could happen from CRA and, if you want to take some action, follow THIS LINK to send a message to your representatives.
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Whereas on April 26, 2010, December 20, 2010, and July 7, 2011 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration publicly posted their intent to regulate cigars in the Federal Register, it is incumbent upon the cigar enthusiasts of the United States to voice their opposition to any proposed new regulation of premium/traditional cigars by the United States Government.House Resolution 1639 has been filed in the U.S. House of Representatives; and a companion bill, Senate Bill 1461, has been filed in the Senate. Both are filed under the banner of the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act. This bi-partisan legislation would decree that premium/traditional cigars should be off limits to FDA regulation and, ‘to clarify the Food & Drug Administration’s jurisdiction’ in the ‘sale, manufacturing and distribution of traditional and premium cigars.’
Such legislation could have a profound impact on protecting the industry, from the fields and factories of Central America , to the supply-chain throughout this nation, to the community tobacconist, to enjoying a cigar in the local shop, club or back porch.
We can assure you, nothing could rip the soul of the cigar industry apart, like FDA actions. For example, some of the (again) hypothetical possibilities, but that are not beyond the realm of reason include: No more walk in humidors (Canadian model); Limits on advertising and promotions; Banning the very word cigar or tobacco; Manufacturers having to submit blends to FDA for “testing,” before heading to your local shop – imagine the impact on boutique cigar makers; Adverse impact on flavored tobacco products; And price impact due to new fees on manufacturers. This, is the short list.
Cigar.com Corojo Label Cigar Review
In my quest to find a good cigar for very little money I have decided to do some testing. Due to Cigar.com’s easy form of delineating their house blends (colors, wrapper variety or Cuban) I decided that would be a good place to start. After trying all of these cigars I can safely say that none of them are excellent but that is not much of a surprise since the purpose of these cigars is not to wow people but to provide them with a quality alternative for an everyday type of smoke.
That is why I am going to change the format here a little and either give the Cigar.com house blends a PASS or FAIL. To keep things fair, all the cigars sampled are in the 5″ x 50 robusto vitola. Now onto the cigar.
Here is what Cigar.com has to say about their budget Corojo Label:
Like all Cigar.com House Blends, the Corojo Label is an extraordinary value, utilizing only the finest tobaccos to blend a cigar worthy of bearing the Cigar.com name. Full-bodied with a long and pronounced finish, the Corojo Label is a bit dry on the palate and features a robust, spicy aroma that rounds out into a complex mix of wood and earth tones.
These cigars come in four different sizes: churchill (7.5″ x 50), corona (6″ x 42), robusto (5″ x 50) and torpedo (6″ x 52). As of the publishing of this post, they cost less than $3.00 when individually purchased and can cost less than $2.50 when purchased in a box of 20. That is pretty cheap.
Having already reviewed the Sun Grown and Cuban varieties I can tell you that there are some worthwhile smokes in the Cigar.com stables. This cigar is more tightly packed than the Cuban variety and it has a different look to it as well. Being both smoother and less veiny than the Cuban line it looks like a very well made cigar. The wrapper is a normal brown.
Offa Blaze!
It starts off with not much more than a dud. Flavors? Well, there is wood and a minute amount of sweetness. But both of those flavors are very watered down. It is not an unpleasant cigar it just isn’t much of a cigar.
The second third does take a good turn. With flavors picking up and becoming richer this cigar is evolving into something respectable. There is a bit of spice on the fringes and the core is a mixture of rich dirt and charcoal. Maybe a little meaty as well.
It took a bad turn during the final third. The flavor became burnt and harsh. Very little redeeming qualities during this third. For the price it is not a terrible cigar. Medium bodied with a good draw and burn and there is some flavor. Just not good enough flavors in my opinion.
FAIL
Cigar Deal Sites
Chances are that if you have shopped for cigars online you have come across some deal sites (or pages) for cigars. There are also email specials that can offer good value from time to time but, for the purposes of this post, I will focus on the actual sites/pages. Here is a list of the pages that I visit to find good deals online.
This site, powered by Famous Smoke Shop, has three distinct parts to it: cigar deals, accessory deals and a name your own price for cigars section. First, the cigar deals page is actually one of the more complicated deal systems around. A new cigar, a sampler pack or a box of cigars is available either every hour or couple of hours depending on the time of day (during the night a cigar can last four hours or so on this page). The time is set by the proprietor and is easily visible on the actual page. In addition to this, every deal gets lumped in together in what they call the Cigar Monster Mash-up for one hour at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. and all the deals of the week get put into a mash-up every Friday for the whole day. These mash-ups also include the deals on accessories for the appropriate time periods.
If the deal is really good chances are the deal will get sold out so the more often you check in on the site the better your chances are of picking up a cigar that you like. More often than not, however, the cigars featured on this site tend to be more of the value variety. You will not find many rare cigars here nor very many high priced cigars. On occasion I have picked up some Camacho Triple Maduros, Joya de Nicaragua Antanos and some other pretty great cigars from this site but don’t expect those deals to pop up every day or even every week.
The last part of this site is the name your own price section. It works as it sounds: you put in a price, go through the whole check out process and then, after you have done all that work, you find out whether or not they have accepted your offer. Many of these items are boxes but there are also single cigars up to bid on. On this section of the site you are more likely to find more sought after cigars… as long as they are still available. Unfortunately, the better cigars have a penchant for getting themselves sold out very early on in the Cigar Monster day, which starts at midnight EST. The best strategy to use for this site is to pick out the price you are willing to pay for that cigar and then subtract some money from that, preferably an amount that you are sure they won’t accept. And then, once they have rejected your first bid, go up in small increments: $1 increments for boxes and smaller increments for singles (maybe as low as $0.10, I’m not sure of the exact amount but that’s what I would go with). After going through the checkout process the first time it will go more quickly each successive time you try a bid.
My problem with this kind of deal is that unless you are in complete control of your emotions you might be tempted to go over the amount you are willing to pay for that cigar. And Heaven forbid you pay more than you could have paid somewhere else – that would just be stupid. But I’m sure it happens. So, before you start bidding on a cigar make sure that you know how much you can buy it for somewhere else.
One note of caution about this site and especially for the name your own price section of it: unless the product has a UPS picture on it then you do not receive free shipping. Without free shipping some of these “deals” evaporate into thin air. So make sure that you get free shipping. If you do find a product that doesn’t have free shipping then you can put it in your cart and wait for the rest of the day to find a product on that site or on famous-smoke.com that does have free shipping. When you purchase a product without free shipping in conjunction with a product that does have free shipping your whole order will ship for free unless you are ordering a special item (usually you cannot get free shipping when ordering a humidor).
This site is a little more straightforward than the aforementioned Cigar Monster in that it mostly behaves like a traditional deal of the day site. Most days it is just that: deal of the day. On Tuesdays they have the “2-fer Tuesday”, which, as far as I can tell, is doubling up on the savings for an everyday-type smoke. Most days you will find that this site has one cigar (sometimes in a five pack, sometimes ten, sometimes twenty) on a deal and they always have free shipping, which is nice.
But then there are those special days when there is a Jam going on. Basically, Cigars International, the parent of Joe Cigar, will put out a cigar on a deal and they will only put out a specific quantity of that cigar. They don’t tell you the exact number available but they do provide you with a little bar that decreases in link as more purchases are made. Once the quantity has been exhausted they will move onto the next cigar. So be careful and get your order in quick because if they sell out before you get your order in the deal is gone and you are left out in the cold without that special deal.
Jams can sometimes be elusive creatures not appearing for days at a time. And then WHAM! there will be two jams in a row. So check in every night at midnight EST to see what is going on.
Unlike its parent (Cigars International) Cigar.com’s daily deal site is just a page on its site. Even though that might look like they aren’t putting in much of an effort nothing could be further from the truth because it is one of the best daily deal sites around. Every day they line up three deals for you and each deal usually consists of the pairing of two different cigars both in quantities of three or five. If memory serves, sometimes a deal can be a sampler as well. And your order ships free. Sometimes, when the deal is especially nice, a deal will sell out. So, again, check in at midnight EST to see what is going on there.
Every week from Tuesday to Monday Atlantic Cigar Co. has a dozen or so different deals to choose from. Each deal is usually a box or a bundle and there are some good cigars in the mix. Most of these deals do not come with free shipping but if the item has a little truck next to its picture then that means that it does come with free shipping. Even without the free shipping a lot of these deals would still make sense.
These deals go up on Friday and last all week unless they get sold out, which happens. This site offers some of the more premium cigars in its deals and, depending on which week it is, there can be a couple of dozen deals to choose from. The deals range from single sticks to boxes and amazing samplers. If you have $100 pegged for some cigars do yourself a favor and check out this site before making a purchase because you might find something great.
Cigars International
What we have here is seven weekly deals offered by Cigars International. Most of these deals are not that great but there are sometimes good deals to be had. Here they are in list format:
Here is another daily deal site and this one is brought to you by Stogie Boys. These deals are for either cigars or accessories and come with free shipping. Most of the deals here aren’t of the premium cigar variety but I have talked with the owner of this place and they do have plans for improving their stock in the future. So check in from time to time to see if there is something worthwhile available.
Another deal of the day site. Personally, I do not have much experience with this site but it does come with free shipping and that is a good thing.
I’m willing to bet that there are other sites like the ones I have listed so feel free to add them in the comments section to help everyone out. Thanks!
Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo Cigar Review
I have had one last Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo sitting in my humidor for about a year now. Looking back on my notes I can see that I generally liked the ones that I had before so let’s see what a year’s worth of aging has done to this cigar.
For whatever reason, probably a combination of the dark wrapper and the torpedo shape, this looks like a menacing cigar. It looks like it is just going to kick you in the butt the second that you touch foot to torch. Beyond the fact that if this cigar were a person you would probably cross the street if you saw it coming your way, it is a good looking, well made cigar. Not very many veins, sufficiently packed from tip of torpedo to foot and the wrapper is fairly oily.
Cigar Stats
Vitola: Torpedo
Length: 6″
Ring Gauge: 54
Wrapper: Nicaragua
Binder: Honduran
Filler: Nicaragua
Price: $10.00/Single | $150.00/Box of 20
Marauder Torch!
After a year or so in the humidor this cigar is somewhat better than it was before. There is more nuance to the flavors, which, by the way, are led by chocolate followed by bitter coffee and generally earthy flavors. After a while the body gradually increases into the full bodied spectrum. One nit to pick is that the draw is a bit too loose and I think that is muting the flavors to a degree or two.
Gosh, this is an extremely slow burning cigar. I think it’s been nearly an hour, probably more like 45 minutes, and I can just now see the second third around the proverbial bend. At this point there has been some evolution in the cigar and that evolution is more towards the spicy side of the flavor spectrum. It’s a good twist because the main flavor other than the spice, which is fiery and long lasting (it never really leaves your palate actually), is chocolate. It’s a nice milk chocolate that goes well with spice.
The transition from the first third to the second third gets firmly set in and lasts through most of the second third. The final third is much the same with one notable departure. Chocolate becomes less of a leader and in its place there is this sweetness accompanied by toast. Almost as if you were smoking toast with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on top. And then….
It takes an unexpected turn and the sweetness becomes floral. Fortunately, it is not that fruity kind of floral flavor but it is the heartier kind, the deep, flavorful kind rather. And the spice has gone away. It’s a great way to (slowly) end a cigar that could have otherwise become too heavy on the spice.
If you were to gently prod me into saying something negative about this full bodied cigar I would quickly respond with this: the draw is too loose, which leads to the cigar being a bear to keep lit. This is all weird to me since there is a copious amount of smoke when it is lit and the flavors are excellent. It’s a pain but it’s got to be like the pain one feels when trying to keep a classic car up and running. Sure, there is a lot of maintenance required but it’s more fun than bagging your limit of yetis.
93 points
