Cubao Maduro

[kaisersozei]

Wrapper/Filler/Binder: Ecuadorian broadleaf/Nic/Nic
Vitola: Belicoso (5½ x 52)
B&M Price: $9/single



The Cubao Maduro is one of EO Brand’s newest releases. It is blended by DPG and said to have the same filler & binder as the original Cubao, but with an Ecuadorian broadleaf maduro wrapper instead of the Ecuadorian Sumatra. I smoked a few of these over the past week, and made it my “CA’lloween cigar” this Saturday, worthy of a review.

Appearance/Construction
Very oily wrapper, well rolled, firm but with no hard spots, well bunched tobacco. Perfect amount of resistance on the draw, lots of smoke, straight burn that only required one touch-up. Ash held together nicely, producing a bright red cone when it dropped. Overall a very well constructed stick.

Flavor
This had probably the richest pre-light flavors I’ve ever pulled through a cigar: earth, leather and heavy chocolate. Right after torching it up I was greeted with an interesting blend of wet-leaf earthiness and toast, with some dark chocolate thrown in. Just a hint of pepper in the first few puffs, that disappeared until the later stage of the cigar. Ash dropped after about 1½” and the cigar picked up a bitter twang & a citrus-like fruitiness. The combination reminded me of eating an orange slice that has too much of that white pithy stuff on it. Not exactly what it tasted like, but what it reminded me of. Still consistently earthy. The finish was sweet & spicy—not peppery, more holiday-like: cinnamon and nutmeg.

The pay-off on this was in the last 1-2”, which was the most complex part of the cigar. The spice picked up and the pepper was added back to the mix. Each draw brought a nice mixture of hot cocoa, a raisin fruitiness typical to most maduros, spice, pepper and that underlying earthiness. Unfortunately that bitterness lingered in the last half of the smoke, which might be cured by some time in the humidor.


My Cigar Asylum Pumpkin Buddy kept me company.


Overall
I checked my notes on the original Cubao, and found the two share some of the same flavor characteristics. It was not as rich a maduro as EO’s 601 Blue, more in line with a Padron x000 Maduro series. Listed as full-bodied, I found that it tended more toward medium in both body and strength. I’m a fan of the Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, so I prefer the Cubao to the Cubao Maduro. This was still a very good cigar that I would gladly smoke again, and would recommend to all my maduro buddies.