Puro Vida Maduro Toro
The Puro Vida cigar company is one that hails from the great state of Mississippi. It is a local company based out of Biloxi and is the brainchild of personal friend Eddie Rivers. Puro Vida was launched a few months ago. With the help of myself, Ben Lee of Stogiereview.com and a few other local cigar smokers, we helped Eddie with the prototype blends of his cigars. We made a few suggestions, the factory make the tweaks and the Puro Vida line of cigars was alive.
Puro Vida means “Pure Life” and pays homage to Eddie’s roots in Honduras. Some of his family is presently living in the area. Eddie goes there frequently to visit, check on cigar production and to bring back some awesome coffee that his family grows. Puro Vida has three lines to fit almost everyone’s likings; Connecticut (mild), Maduro (medium) and a Habano (full). The Habano line is my favorite, but today I am going to take a look at the Maduro line.
 
Cigar Stats
Size: 6×50
Vitola: Toro
Wrapper: Maduro
Filler: Undisclosed
Binder: Undisclosed
Country: Nicaragua
Price: $8.95*Â Â Â
 
First Looks
This cigar is pretty rustic looking with a dark chocolate brown wrapper that has a few light and dark spots in it. There are a few minimal veins and a slight toothiness throughout the wrapper. The band is classic and simple with some nice scrolls with a black background, red lettering and gold outlines. The wrapper has an aroma of straw and hay, while the foot has a stronger hay aroma with some hints of cinnamon here and there. The cigar has a nice firm pack with no soft or hard spots.
Construction
A straight cut reveals a milkshake thick draw that is a little tight for my usual likings, but it may open up some once into the cigar. I get some hints of the stray and hay I smelled in the wrapper along with a hint of a sweetness as well. The density of the pack gave my soft flame lighter a run for its money toasting up this cigar.
The ash was almost pure white with hints of a dirtiness to it. Those tight ashes came from a burn that started off a bit wavy; mainly due to my soft flame lighter not getting the foot toasted evenly. The burn corrected itself eventually and I had no major issues with it afterwards. The draw did loosen up some after once lit. Overall a fairly well constructed cigar.
Flavor
The first handful of draws on this cigar always confuse me. I have had a bit of these cigars and never could really pinpoint what flavors I get right at the start. Its sort of like a semi-spicy muted cocoa flavor. Once into the first third, the spice rounds off a good bit and is not a bitey as it started out to be. The cocoa got more creamy than muted and eventually let in a light wood flavor. Leaving the first portion, a nice coffee note appears and fits in nicely with the mix of flavors.
Into the middle portion, the spice transitions into a black pepper with less bite than the spice did at first. The cocoa is a little sweeter than before, but still not where I would like for it to be at. The wood note has settled down more into the back half of the smoke and it not as pronounced as it was before. The coffee note is still there, slightly stronger than the wood, but like the wood; its a little lesser in strength. Around the halfway point, the cocoa becomes more of a chocolate note and a tad bit more richer. Exiting the middle portion, the spice is a thing of the past and the coffee takes a step up in strength and gets a slightly bitter profile to it.
The final third has the coffee note coming to the forefront of the smoke. The chocolate eases back, but still in front of the black pepper and wood notes. At the very end, the black pepper tries to make its comeback as the key flavor, but is not totally successful. It mingles in with the chocolate and coffee. Those said flavors eventually push the wood note out of the picture.
Final Thoughts
The middle portion ended up being my favorite. The mix of cocoa, coffee and light wood made for a pretty tasty smoke. The other parts were good, but the middle seemed to shine the most for me. The body was a good medium as well as the medium strength flavors. Personally, I would like to see this cigar with more body and flavor strength with a bit more sweetness to it. But then again, not everyone likes my flavor likings. The Habano Puro Vida is the strongest of their lineup and I am ok with that and the maduro hlds the medium area in their lineup. This is a fairly good maduro, I have had a lot worse and a lot better. But overall it had a great construction and good flavors.
*This cigar was provided to me, unsolicited, from Eddie Rivers of Puro Vida Cigars for this review. Many thanks to him for the opportunity to review this cigar!
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