CAO Sopranos Associate

[Whee]

After a small hiatus, Illinois Hoosier's Review Corner is back! Yeah, I know...

Tonights' mob hit, is courtesy of Smitdavi. We finally hooked up at a Hoosier game (damn Chippewas!) and he gifted me a few wonderful smokes, this being one of them.

CAO Sopranos Associate
5x52
Wrapper: Brazilian Mata Fina
Filler: Combination of Nicaraguan, Dominican and Columbian leaf

The unsuspecting victim..."Don't Stop Believin'" plays in the background


The appearance of this stick is wonderful. Dark brown, rough to the touch wrapper, with a couple of nice veins running on it. Aroma is a nice cedar smell, with a little chocolate. Very firm, nicely constructed. Clipped with the ol' Palio easily. Pre light draw is firm and the taste is definitely chocolatey. Lit with no problems.

Obligatory 5 minute pic...


Early flavor is spicy chocolate, but it is mellow. The aroma is nutty. Burn looks good, ash is light gray. Lots of creamy white smoke.

20 minutes...


As you can see, another mob hit preceded this one...
The flavor is still holding steady although it has picked up some cedarness. The aroma is fantastic; like a burning cedar plank with chocolate on it. Flavor is not strong, very subtle. The ash is more white than I noted earlier and is holding well. Decent amount of smoke. As I took this pic, I noticed a small split on the foot.

Thanks to being a bit shaky tonight, I clipped the ashtray and dropped the ash at thirty minutes. It was solid.

Here we are at 40 minutes...


The flavor has definitely mellowed now, just a mild spice. Aroma is still great though as noted earlier. Stick recovered from its ashtray accident just fine, burn is good, with the exception of one little odd spot that I corrected. Draw has been perfect throughout.

The aroma continued to be spicy cedar, but picked up a bit of a stale note. The flavor, though, is unchanged.

One hour in...


Starting to go ugly here. The stale note was just a temporary bump. The chocolate cedar is back, and I actual got a little floral smell. As you can see, the burn is uneven here and it would not correct itself. The flavor has started to go away and turn a bit harsh, but we'll see where we go.

Ok, only 4 more minutes...and I killed it. The burn was really ragged. An hour later and there is still a bit of taste lingering. Medium finish on this one.

I really liked the first half of this smoke. The chocolate cedar aroma was wonderful and the flavor was smooth until that last 15 minutes or so. As a CAO fan, this stick is pretty typical of the line...good smoke, but would be really good for $4. I would definitely give these another try.

It gets...

3 Big Pussies out 5