CAO Bratalia--Cigar Tourney Review #5

[Whee]

Here we go with another review from the tourney, the #5 seed.

CAO Bratalia
Perfecto
Wrapper: Combo Italia and Brazilia


Here is the dark beauty...


Cigar is very dark in appearance with the alternating Italia/Brazilia wrappers. The pre light aroma is a nice sweet tobacco. Wrapper is not the prettiest wrapper. Very rough, and looks "off" in spots. The pre light draw is firm with a nice molassess flavor.

5 minute pic...

It lit easily and has continued that molasses flavor through the first 5 minutes. Nice spicy aroma coming off...so far so good. The burn started a little off, but seems to be straightening out. A little bit of tea flavor is coming through. The ash is medium gray and loose/flaky. Fell off when I picked it up to take the above pic. Nice amount of smoke. The foot has started to split. It's acting like a DPG Cuban Classic.

20 minutes in...

The flavor is definitely that Italia twang. I think the Brazilia's contribution is that sweet molassess flavor. It's very nice. About 15 mminutes in, a little espresso cane through. It's very light though. Smoke has picked up a bit and the ash is still loose and flaky. The wrapper continues to split, but not bad enough to create too many problems.

40 minutes in...

Burn is still pretty erratic. Touched it up twice so far. The flavor is a bit muted now. Still a little molassess, but now a little leather is coming through. Has a nice light spice through the nose. Sweet aroma coming off.

We have a runner!! At one hour in, the burn snaked up the Brazilia wrapper up one side of the stick. Touched up. The flavor has been pretty consistent throughout. The ash is still a flaky mess, but the draw has been good all the way.

Let it die after another 11 minutes...

The crakced wrapper came from fixing the runner.
The flavor started out, but mellowed out as it went on. Caught a few different tastes, but nothing came on very strong. Pretty typical for a CAO. Could definitely identify the Italia and the Brazilia flavor profiles in this stick though. Overall, the burn was pretty bad, touched up 4 times.

Here is the results...
Appearance and Presentation: 15 (20)
Lighting and Burning: 10(15)
Construction: 29(30)
Tasting Properties: 22(35)
Overall score: 76