Colón Especiales III

[Don Fernando]

Colón is a Panamanian puro by the German owned company Darier & Cleef. Their Colón Grand Vintage is their ultra premium and ultra expensive cigar. They also produce Marca Fina, a bundled budget cigar in several vitola's and available as Panamanian, Honduran and Dominican puros, so you can really discover the taste differences in the tobaccos from these countries, Campo Verde, the first Fair Trade cigar ever and the Colón Especiales line which is much nicer priced with a price tag below 15 euro. I had a sit down with the owner and the Dutch representative Gerhard Weigl in the smoke lounge of restaurant Klein Kalfje in Amsterdam where we talked about cigars, promotion and so on.



First thing I notice is the nice band, which has nice lettering but what really got my eyes were the golden dots that create the shape of Panama on the band. I think that is a nice touch. The light colored wrapper has lots of small thin veins and some spots. The wrapper is oily. The construction feels good and the cigar has a mild barnyard and wood smell. I punched the cigar and got a great predraw with a mild wood flavor which is mild spicy. This Colón Especiales is 6 inch long and has a ring of 42.



I taste a warm coffee flavor with some wood. It strikes me again that tobacco from Panama tastes so different than tobacco from other countries, much smoother. The flavors are full and complex. After an inch the coffee has disappeared and I taste herbs with wood and some earth. The flavors aren't Cubanesque but the complexity of the cigar is. The flavors are mild sticky.



Halfway I taste a nut flavor for a short amount of time as a support of the wood and earth. The herbal flavor is gone. The flavors are still full but smooth. After ⅔ the herbs return and become dominant rightaway with earth on the background. After ¾ the nut flavors return, I can taste hazelnuts and walnuts with the herbs.



The smoke time of this cigar is about 90 minutes. The cigar produces a nice amount of thick white smoke. The draw and burn are very good. The salt & pepper colored ash isn't very firm. There is a built up of nicotine in the cigar which leads to a nice flame while purging. This cigar is full flavored yet mild to medium bodied and quite complex. I would not smoke this right after a heavy dinner, but this is a very nice cigar late in the morning, early in the afternoon or after a light dinner.



Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, I liked it a lot.

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 8 / 10
Aroma second part: 8 / 10
Aroma third part: 8 / 10