It's probably not a well-known fact about me, but in a normal year I enjoy 1-2 nice cigars. I typically do this to honor the memory of my late great-grandfather, who in my memory very often had a cigar in his mouth or nearby in an ash tray. I haven't had one in 2-3 years, so when I started thinking about my grandfather who passed away this past December (10th), I was reminded a little of HIS father. In a sort of tribute to them, I decided to smoke one of the cigars I purchased back in November from Cigars International. That cigar was the CAO Black.
I'll tell you some more about that cigar and my experience below in the review, but the short version is that the cigar's smoke has a nice scent in the air, the cigar produces a smooth white smoke, it burns very evenly, and leaves your mouth with a distinct peppery feeling - like you just had a bite of a medium-hot jalapeno pepper.
CAO Black Cigar – Initial Impressions
My interest in cigars stems primarily from happy memories associated with my late great-grandfather, Harley. My great-grandfather always seemed to have a cigar nearby, even if he wasn’t smoking it. His favorite, or at last the ones he smoked most often, was the “El Verso Bouquet” cigar – which shipped inside a blue, white, and yellow box. When I was a kid, it was always a thrill when he gave me one of his old El Verso boxes. I liked the hint of cigar smell in the box, the fact that it came from him, and always enjoyed how El Verso sealed those cardboard boxes with a little nail. I kept one of the boxes after he and my great-grandmother passed away, to remind me of him. If I have any cigars on hand, I keep them there in memory of him. It’s also in memory of him that I (very occasionally) take one of them out of the box and smoke it. I enjoy cigars but by no means can say that I “love” them.
Back in November, I had the opportunity through
Fatwallet to purchase a
premium cigar sampler from the folks at
Cigars International in Bath, PA. This included 8 cigars for $15 shipped. All 8 were premium cigars selling for at least $5 each in box quantities, so it was quite a good deal. The sampler included a
CAO Black Ltd. Storm (5” x 50) cigar, which is the subject of this particular review.
CI describes this cigar as the “crown jewel” of the
CAO line. It is said to be “crafted with extensively aged, top-tier tobaccos, made in heartbreakingly limited quantities, and packaged in hand-painted, hand-numbered boxes. The production run was just 6,000 boxes for the entire US market.” Each
CAO Black is wrapped in a thin cedar sleeve with a small black satin ribbon tacked it. They are also then covered in cellophane.
Visually, this was a very impressive cigar inside the wrapper. The vibrant CAO logo on the band, the cedar sleeve, and the thin black ribbon clearly differentiated this cigar from the other 7 in the selection. The aroma before I lit the cigar was a pleasant one, bringing back childhood memories of my great-grandfather’s cigar boxes.
Perhaps because I was standing outside in a very light wind, or perhaps because I haven’t had a cigar in 3-4 years, it took me 3 matches to get the CAO Black to light. Once it was lit, however, it burned very cleanly and evenly. The ashes didn’t litter the ground, coming off the cigar only when I wanted them to. This made it a very easy cigar to walk around with, giving me confidence that it wasn’t going to drop a trail of ashes behind me that I’d have to clean up later.
The draw from the CAO Black was reasonably easy, very smooth, and satisfying. The smoke had, for me, a smooth but very pleasant taste and aroma. CI describes the flavor as having “a ton of creamy spice flavors with a subtle hint of vanilla and a veritable cornucopia of complex and varied flavors at the medium-full end of the spectrum.” I can’t say that I noticed the vanilla or the complexity, but then again I only had the opportunity to smoke about 20% of the cigar before I was forced to let it extinguish itself so that I could discharge some family responsibilities. It took about a half hour to get through that 20%, so my impression is that these cigars will last a decent amount of time if you’re not constantly drawing hard on them.
CI says that CAO Black has “an incredibly clean finish, leaving only a slight, lingering and pleasing peppery taste on the palate.” I can’t argue with that. The finish was extremely clean and pleasant, one of the cleanest finishes of any cigar I’ve ever had. The taste lingered hours after I stopped smoking the cigar, even after dinner and a tooth brushing. (My wife does NOT enjoy the taste or smell of cigars, so the brushing was mandatory for a couple of reasons. ;-) There is a definite and enjoyable spicy hot finish that lingers long after you finish the cigar. I would compare it to the feeling of having just eaten a slightly-hot jalapeno pepper. The feeling was, in fact, a good complement to a spicy salsa I had with my dinner. It heightened the “heat level” of the salsa noticeably, which was just fine with me.
The
CAO Black is an excellent cigar on many levels, and I recommend it to even the “occasional” cigar aficionado like myself. I'd rate it about an 8.5 on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being perfect.
