J&D Allure Habano Toro
J&D Cigars is a boutique cigar company that was founded by David Insignares & Jorge Gil.
Jorge Gil was born and raised in Cuba and was introduced to Tobacco at an early age. Now he lives and runs a successfully Tobacco business in Esteli Nicaragua.
David Insignares’s family hails from Colombia, but he was born and raised in NY. He now lives in Miami where he met Jorge some 20 Years ago. That is where their friendship and J&D Cigars began.
Jorge owns many tobacco farms and is in charge of the whole growing process. He is also a master grower with 12+ years of tobacco growing experience under his hat. The factory, in Miami, is ran by David. They have many Grade 9 (the highest level a cigar roller can reach) torcedores. Those torcedores are able to roll even the most difficult sticks, the Perfecto & Salomon. With all of their combined efforts comes the Allure line of cigars. The Allure is available in a Habano and Maduro wrapper.
Cigar Breakdown
Size: 6×50
Vitola: Toro
Wrapper: Equadorian Habano
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan from Esteli, Jalapa and Condega
Country: Nicaragua
First Looks
This cigar lives up to its name. Typically when you think “allure” you think beauty that intrigues or catches your attention. That is the case with this cigar. The Equadorian Habano wrapper of this cigar is a very beautiful with a nice medium brown color. Smooth with minimal veins, tight seams and a nice, deeply applied double cap. The band is almost as nice as the wrapper leaf itself. It is very classy, eye catching, but still maintains a low-key outlook; similar to the models they use with their advertising campaigns.
The wrapper has a fairly strong tobacco aroma with hints of slight nuttiness. The foot has a fairly strong straw and barnyard aroma to it. Overall, the cigar has a semi-firm feel to it. It is not too firm, yet not too soft. The looks of this cigar show that J&D has a high quality control outlook. A straight cut off the cap reveals an excellent draw. Not too snug, yet not too loose. From the cold draw I got minimal hints of straw, hay, and cinnamon.
Construction
The draw stayed consistently good. Not too snug, or too loose; a tad bit thicker than perfect on my eyes. But everybody likes a different type of draw. Some like it loose, some thick; this draw was a happy medium. The burn was a little wavy, but never veered off enough to need a touch-up. The gray ash held nicely for a decent amount past one inch. Its was not a nice tight ash, but there were no big flakes or gaps in it.
Flavor
The first few puffs off the Allure Habano gives me some herbal (almost floral) notes. Along with those are a slight sweetness and a miniscule amount of black pepper on the back half of the smoke. A ways into the first third, the herbal/floral notes migrates to more of a nuttiness flavor. The more I get into the firs third, the smoke gets a bit more creamier. The long finish of the smoke is more creamier than the drawn smoke. The first third of this cigar has turned out to be a nice smoke with no complaints so far.
Going into the middle portion of the cigar, the black pepper seems to increase some in strength. The nutty flavors are still abundant, but now are combined with a leathery flavor that I enjoyed.  The key player notes of nuts, leather and black pepper make the middle portion of the cigar a real nice smoke; just as nice as the first. Although, I did prefer the middle portion over the first. About the halfway point, the leather got a bit of a spicy twang to it and was very unexpected. After the halfway point, the herbal and floral notes have disappeared and left a slight vegetal twang.
Working into the final portion of the cigar, the vegetal twang moves to the aftertaste of the smoke and lessens in strength. Letting the cigar rest more between puffs, the twang eases off, most likely the too short of a rest between puffs caused the twang. The black pepper has now eased off some into the shadows of the smoke and is barely noticed. The smoke ended nice & leathery. The black pepper is still around but a muted version of its previous state. The vegetal flavor has moved onto the finish that is not as drawn out as previously.
Final Thoughts
This cigar is a great smoke. I really enjoyed the mix of nuts, leather, minimal spice & sweetness. The smoke is as smooth as the skin of the models they use in their advertising campaigns. The creaminess mellowed off the flavors some enough to allow them from overpowering each other. Basically, they mixed well in a nice harmony. The smoke wasn’t overly complex, but did have nice subtle changes through out the entire cigar. I would definitely suggest to try this cigar. A nice medium to full bodied smoke with solid medium strengthed flavors.
*This cigar was provided to me, unsolicited, from David & Tracy of Allure Cigars for this review. Many thanks to David & Tracy for the opportunity to review this cigar!
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