One of the highlights of last year's Big Smoke, Las Vegas was the Saturday morning seminar session, which included a unique tasting event from CAO. Company president, Tim Ozgener, brought along sampling kits that featured short puro samplers of each of three ligero tobaccos that are featured in the LX2. 500 of us got to try it in November, but my friend and I were already smoking something else when that event got started, so we took our sampling kits home and smoked them the next week.
Earlier this year, Tim did the same type of tasting event for the members of the Nashville Cigar Club when they came to visit CAO headquarters. These proved to be so successful that he has elected to host a series of tasting events around the country, keeping the numbers small (about 50 or so max) so as to have time to spend talking one-on-one with everyone present. I got a chance to attend one at my local shop, Burns Tobacconist, last Thursday, June 11.If you were paying attention, you would have noticed that I said there are three ligero tobaccos present in the LX2, which reportedly means: "Ligero times two." Tim was asked about this and he said that this was done to have the cigar name fall in line with the other "X2" cigars that CAO makes (MX2 and CX2); CAO likes to do things in 3's (Brazilia, Italia, America, for example).
The first puro was a fairly common piloto tobacco from the Dominican Republic. I found it to be nutty and earthy with just a little pepper on the retrohale. It was medium-bodied and the draw was absolutely terrible. The flavor was not bad, but it was rather bland. Later Tim let us in on the secret that this piloto tobacco was the balancing agent that allowed the second and third types of ligero to play well together.The second puro was from the Esteli region of Nicaragua. Tim described the soil in this region as black and volcanic. The flavor I got was woody and spicy with a fuller body and a much better draw. There was also a bit of bitter cocoa flavor present. The oily nature of this one left a film in my mouth.
The third puro was also Nicaraguan, from the Pueblo Nuevo region, where the soil is more reddish. This tobacco was much sweeter, with strong cocoa and chocolate flavors and some spice on the finish. It was much more pungent and tended to get bitter after a few minutes.
Finally, we got to taste the combination of these three ligeros (plus some other fillers that were not mentioned) in the LX2 robusto. This is a superbly balanced cigar in which you can taste all of the elements present in the puros if you are paying attention. It was woody with hints of cocoa and just a touch of bitterness of some places.After the tasting part of the event was over, Tim was good enough to stick around and talk to everyone, taking pictures and signing autographs. Included in the event price was a copy of Cigar Style, for which Tim wrote the forward. There's also a picture of him that he autographed for almost everyone present. One of the regulars/members at Burns is a painter and painted a beautiful rendition of one of CAO's ads featuring Tim; this was signed and will be showcased at Burns.
Everyone present also received a raffle ticket and to my astonishment--I won something! I cannot remember the last time I won anything at a cigar event raffle, but this time around I not only did win, but I won something I can really use: a very nice, bright red CAO ashtray (complete with a drawstring carry bag!).If you have the time and this event happens at a location near you...you should stop everything you are doing and just go. Tim Ozgener is a very gracious host who will talk cigars with you all night if you let him (and, Tim, if you are reading this, say "thanks" to the Mrs. for allowing us to borrow you as late as we did).
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