Herederos De Robaina Toro

Posted by Shawn

December 18, 2012

Little is known about the Herederos De Robaina line of cigars. They are though made by Amercian Caribbean Tobacco in Esteli, Nicaragua. They were recently added to the growing portfolio of cigars that Emilio Cigars distributes. They will be available in four sizes (robusto, toro, torpedo & churchill) in 10 and 20 count boxes. They should be on the shelves soon, if not already, with prices that start at about $5.75 and go up from there.

The Details:

Size: 6Ã—50
Vitola: Toro
Wrapper: unknown
Binder: unknown
Filler: unknown

Note: The blend make up is not disclosed by Herederos De Robaina or Gary Griffith (who supplied me the samples to try for review). I have mixed feelings of not disclosing the blend, but its their blend and can understand why they wouldn’t want to publish it.

First Looks: Nice medium to dark brown wrapper with a few small veins that has a fairly firm feel to it. No hard or soft spots the length of the cigar. A very simplistic band covers the top portion of the cigar. Its not very eye catching, but we don’t smoke the bands, we smoke the cigar!

The foot has a cinnamon and straw aroma to it and is pretty strong. On the other end, a double cap covers the head. I like a cigar that has more than one cap, its sort of like a security blanket from it unraveling. The cold draw is thick with notes of faint straw and an overall tobacco taste. The draw may be a little too thick for my likings, but it may loosen up as the cigar progresses.

Construction: The draw stayed firm and thick,Â but manageable. The burn was pretty good overall. It had a few slight issues from it being dead on straight. But overall, it was really manageable with no relights needed and produced an almost pure white tight ash at first. Then started to flake off more and more as I progressed into the cigar. Each one of the ashes lasted well more than an inch and I never had an issue with it ever dropping on my lap. Throughout the entire cigar, there was a decent amount of ambient smoke, but lots of thick drawed smoke that had a nice room note. The draw stayed just like the cold draw, thick, but ok. Any tighter, I would have pitched it.

Flavors: First few draws are very woody and like a charred oak taste to it. A very faint Â undertone of spice tickles the middle part of my tongue as well. Further into the cigar, a malty tone comes into play that is a fairly nice flavor. About an inch or so into it the flavors turned to a slightly salty chocolate note with a dark wood tone to it. A slight and faint black pepper undertone kicks up about half way through the first third. Its not overly bold, but noticeably creeping up on my taste buds.

Working towards the halfway point, the smoke is now turning more and more peppery. Its not too bold and strong of a pepper note. Some people don’t like alot of pepper, and this cigar isn’t a pepper bomb, but has a nice amount of black pepper to it. The chocolate note is now an undertone and tastes similar to a white chocolate flavor. Towards the end, the flavors stayed the same with the pepper and white chocolate notes to it. They did seem to die down towards the end, although the pepper was still the stronger of the two notes up until the very last portion where the white chocolate and pepper mingled nicely.

Final Thoughts: Over all it was a pretty decent cigar.Â There were nice notes of wood at Â firstÂ then progressed to a peppery and white chocolate flavor. The first third or so was somewhat complex, but not over complex to loose track of flavors. But after the halfway point, the flavors stayed pretty much consistent. Overall, I’d say it was slightly over medium bodied and a strong medium flavor strength. I wish I could give a food or drink to pair this with, but right off the top of my head I can not.