Fuego Sangre de Toro

[Don Fernando]

At my previous employer we carried a lot of brands, including Casa Magna and years ago that used to be selling like hot cakes, six years ago they made up 40% of out annual sales that year, it was crazy. But because of the high demand, not just in our country but anywhere, Quesada and Plasencia couldn’t keep up with the demand and we were out of stock for a long time, the brand never recovered from that long period of no stock even thought there is now a steady supply of Casa Magna. It’s not dead, not by far, but the sales are way less than they used to be. But back to that dry spell, one morning my boss calls me and says “I have a great replacement for the Casa Magna, there is stock in Germany so we have it next week so start selling and taking pre orders, I will email you the details now”.

So within minutes I get an email with the name of the brand J. Fuego Sangre de Toro, the sizes and prices, that were actually very low with less than €5 for the 6×50 Toro and some details like “Made by Plasencia in Nicaragua”. Now thats where it went wrong, the cigars are made by Tabacos de Oriente, which is in fact Plasencia but not Nicaragua, its their factory in Honduras. But the cigar is a Nicaraguan puro, only rolled in Honduras (same as Alec Bradley Tempus Nicaragua for example) with a blend of Corojo and Criollo fillers, a Criollo binder and a Nicaraguan Colorado wrapper. Oh, and if you wonder if this cigar ever came close to Casa Magna sales? No, it took a long time to sell out the shipment we got in and it wasn’t even a lot. The feedback wasn’t that good, lets see what a few year age have done to it.

The wrapper looks beautiful, its dark with a few thin veins, nothing wrong with it. The construction though has a soft spot under the ring and the first layer of the triple cap is huge, which is not aestheticly pleasing. The rings are quite simple, the thin foot ring is black with silver and golden lining and silver writing which says J. Fuego Cigar Co. The main ring is a two tone red with yellow lettering Sangre de Toro in a paint like typography and the J. Fuego logo in gold on a black tobacco shaped spot and a not to well printed dotted golden outlining. Now the flavor is quite strong but also quite weird, its like opening a jar of pickles, now I like pickles and I eat them daily so this could be good. I punched the cigar, the cold draw is great and I taste black pepper with dry tobacco.

I taste a dry, roasted and smoky wooden flavor, slightly bitter with a hint of pepper. After a centimeter the cigar has a bit of chocolate, honey and toasted wood that isn’t too pleasing, it’s not bad but also not good. After a third the flavor gets better, autumn leaves and toast with a mild dark and creamy chocolate. Some puffs later I taste a peppery aftertaste. Halfway it’s oak with some freshness. After a third the cigar changed to peppery cedar and actually pretty nice.

The draw is great and I get a lot of thick white smoke from the cigar. The ash is flaky, its white with black smears and not too firm. The burn isn’t good but also not bad. This is a medium plus bodied cigar, medium plus flavored too. The smoke time is little less then an hour and a half.

Would I buy this cigar again? No but I won’t mind smoking the half box I have left.

Score: 87

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