5.5" x 32 ring gauge, approx. $2.00The Kentucky Cheroot is marketed by Avanti Cigars as using "only the best tobacco from Tennessee and Kentucky because of their robust, hearty flavor." The tobacco is cured in barns using smoldering Hickory logs until they have a moisture content of no more than 15 percent. They are proud to use 100 percent tobacco with no homogenized or synthetic tobacco products (synthetic tobacco?). They are "not premium cigars" or "status symbols" but are intented "for the serious connoisseur who wants to experience a unique mild and flavorful smoke."
To say that this stogie is rustic-looking would be like saying Barack Obama leans to the left a little. There are massive veins sticking out all over the place. The cigar itself is bent toward one end. The wrapper is ultra-dark brown and rough--very, very rough. This is one ugly cigar. The aroma from the body is like a BBQ--that comes from the hickory smoke, I'm sure. Unsurprisingly, the cold draw also has the flavor or hickory smoke.
After lighting, the predominant flavor is...tobacco. But there was also definitely an undercurrent of wood, too. In fact, when people say a cigar is "woody" this stick would epitomize that sensation. Really not a bad smoke here at the beginning, though. Not at all what I feared it would be.
Halfway through, this stick still has a mostly woody/smoky taste, but there was definitely some bitterness to it, too. Now that I've had one, I don't have to wonder what they will taste like anymore and I probably won't have a second one. The Kentucky Cheroot is not the worst smoke I've ever had (it still beats pretty much anything with the Thompson brand on it), but it really can't stand up to a $2 Curlyhead or a $4 Benchmade. It does make me wonder, though, what CAO could do with some "genuine Tennessee tobacco..."
Grade: C
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