Cigar Review: CAO Gold Vintage

Bouchon, 4.875“ x 60 ring gauge, $8.65
If you’re a faithful Tiki Bar Online reader (and I know there are at least 2 of you out there!), you already know how I feel about the CAO Gold Vintage. This 2009 stick resembled the original CAO Gold in appearance, but under the surface the changes are huge. The original Gold featured Nicaraguan filler along with binder and wrapper leaf from Ecuador. The Vintage has filler from Nicaragua and Honduras, a Nicaraguan binder, and an Ecuadorian Connecticut-shade wrapper from the 2004 harvest year. In my opinion, this is one of the finest Connecticut-shade wrapped cigars to hit the market and it has established itself as my favorite in that category--enough so that I took the rare step of purchasing a box of the Cremant vitola. Today’s review of the Bouchon size is an attempt to tell if this more expensive vitola holds up to the same standard as the Cremant.

Appearance is key on these light-colored Connecticut wrappers. Unfortunately, the sample I picked up did not quite hold up to the highest standard. The wrapper was discolored in a couple places and the seam lines were very visible--almost dark--showing an uneven cut in the leaf near the foot. The aroma was a very pleasant hay with a touch of honey sweetness and just a hint of barnyard. With the perfecto tip there was really no noticeable aroma from the foot. My Xikar XI1 took the head off very cleanly, but--as is typical with perfectos--the cold draw was pretty tight. The unlit flavors were nice, though--some caramel and hay. It really was not hard to remember why I like this so much.

Getting perfectos with poor initial draws to light is always a challenge--this was no different. Initial puffs had very little smoke or flavor, but that changed pretty quickly as the nib end turned to ash, revealing a nice mild profile of hay and that creamy sweetness of the shade wrapper. Very soon I started to get some of the peppery notes that elevated this above the typical mild cigar in my previous review. The rest of the first third was mild-to-medium in body with flavors of hay, caramel, and black pepper that paired extraordinarily well with my Saturday morning coffee. The burn line had to be touched up a bit but burned very evenly after that.

I got more nuttiness from the Gold Vintage in the the second third, complementing the creamy sweetness very well. Otherwise, there was not much change to report--just a continuation of a very nice morning cigar.

In the end, the Bouchon provide to be another great morning cigar, continuing on with flavors or roasted nuts, hay and caramel through the final third. The pepper disappeared in there somewhere. Overall this was a very enjoyable variation on the Gold Vintage, but not as enjoyable as the Cremant--there just did not seem to be as much flavor or complexity in the mix. Add to that the slightly higher price point for a smaller vitola and I have to stick with the Cremant for my own humidor. In baseball terms, this was the equivalent of a double compared with the Cremant’s home run.

Body: 3/10

Strength: 5/10

Complexity: 6/10

AFP Scale
Prelight: 2/2

Construction: 2/2

Flavor: 4.5/5

Value: .5/1

Total: 9/10