Kings Cigars – King of Kings “Cuadrado”

Posted by Shawn

September 5, 2013

Kings Cigars has been on the market for a decent amount of time now. They made an appearance at the Third AnnualÂ Chattanooga Tweetup back in August and their popularity has grown ever since. Kings Cigars has two factories, the first in Santiago, Dominican Republic, and the second in Esteli, Nicaragua. Although, I am not exactly sure where the Cuadrado is made.

The Cuadrado is available in one size, a soft pressed 6×64. I am not a big fan of many cigars over a 54 ring gauge, but I have found a few recently that did cut the mustard that were 60 & 64 ring gauge.

Cigar Stats

Name: Cuadrado

Size: 6×64 Soft Pressed

Wrapper: Habano

Binder: Habano Criollo

Filler: Kings Proprietary Blend

Cost: $190/box (price via Charmed Leaf) *

First Looks

The first things that stand out to me is one, this is a pretty good sized cigar and two, the band. The band has a large crown and crest that covers the majority of the band. It just screams “Royalty” to me. Just from the looks of the cigar, it says “Large and in charge” with the good size cigar and accompanying band. The soft press of the cigar makes the vastness of the 64 ring gauge seem a bit more manageable to me. It fits better in my mouth and is more comfortable than a “usual” round cigar of the same ring gauge.

The wrapper on this cigar is very handsome as such a cigar with a crown on its band should be. There are just a few very small veins, no sunspots or other defects in the medium brown habano wrapper. A deeply applied double cap is perfect for those who cut deep into the cap of the cigar. It also gives more of an area for the pectin glue to adhere the capÂ to the wrapper. This should stop or at least slow down any unraveling issues. The cigar has an overall slightlyÂ firm feel to it with no hard or soft spots. So, there should be no draw issues if any with the cigar.

The foot has an aroma with a dark woody aroma to it. The more I smell the foot, the more I find hints of a fresh roasted peanuts. The wrapper aroma is similar to the foot, yet no aroma of fresh roasted peanuts. More of a medium strengthed wood aroma with some hay in the background that’s even lesser in strength.

Construction

The draw stayed consistently slightly firmer than perfect. The only reason I see it being slightly firm was due to my Xikar cutter couldn’t get a deep enough cut into the cap. A possible double cross cut with a V-cutter would be a better cut seeing you could get a bigger opening to draw smoke through. The soft box press led to a few issues where the burn got a little “off”. It never got too far off to cause any alarm, but I had to keep an eye on the burn and constantly keep turning the cigar to keep the burn in check. I have found many box pressed cigars (or similar to a box press)Â to be a chore to keep a dead even burn.Â I never had to relight this cigar, even though there were a few times it sat a while in the ashtray.

From the burn arose a off-white and gray ash that had a few flakes here & there. Each of these ashes lasted well over 1 1/2″ some close to 2″! This cigar could possibly win a “longest ash” contest if you really tried with it. Being such a large ring gauged cigar, it produced a good amount of smoke; drawn and ambient. I would suspect it would be even more if I could have obtained a better/deeper cut into the cap. Like I said in my previous statement, I had no issues with it unraveling.

Flavor

The start of the cigar started off with a slightly spicy tone. Along with the spice was nice hints of roasted nuts; similar to the aromas of the foot. More into the cigar, I got some flavors similar to caramel corn. There was some salty and sweet notes associated with the smoke. These notes married well with the black pepper spice on the back half of the smoke. The more I progressed into the smoke, the more rounded and even the smoke got. The flavors married well and smoothed off. Heading out of the first third, the roasted nuts got a bit more stronger in flavor strength. The sweetness of the caramel eased off slightly and left the black pepper sticking around, but not a key player in the flavors.

The second third, started off like how the first half ended with the roasted nuts and black pepper. The caramel showed back up in patches here and there some. I enjoyed a few retrohales during the middle portion of this cigar. They let loose a good amount of the black pepper. It was almost to the point of being unpleasant to me. But they weren’t strong enough to stop me from enjoying a few more retrohales. After half way, I got a few hints of a vegetal flavor that ramped up in strength fairly quickly as I left the second third.

The vegetal flavors continued into the last portion of the cigar, along with the roasted nuts from before. The caramel and black pepper have eased off into a lesser volume than before. A few hints of a bitter black pepper arose in the back half of the smoke in a small volume. As quickly as the vegetal notes arose in the smoke, they also diminished just as quick. Those notes were replaced by the woodinessÂ of the first third as well as a tad bit of the black pepper again. The vegetal flavors didn’t completely fade away, they stayed in the background of the smoke and lingered on the long finish of the smoke. Those flavors previously mentioned is how the cigar ended for me; inÂ a pleasant fashion.

Final Thoughts

Over all a good medium bodied smoke with flavor strength in the upper medium range. This cigar had great construction, even considering the off burns here and there. The draw could have been better, but that was mainly due to the type of cut I gave it. The cigar had a good amount of complexity to it. It wasn’t overly complex as to where you couldn’t enjoy one particular flavor or flavors without loosing it quickly. This cigar would possibly go good with a medium bodied cup of coffee or a few fingers of bourbon.

I still do not care for 54+ ring gauges. This cigar is borderline with me being something I would smoked more regularly. I would absolutely smoke this blend a good bit more if it was in a typical toro size.