Robusto, 5.5" x 54 ring gauge, $8
Last year Nestor Miranda made news in the cigar world with his Special Selection, a collaboration with Don Pepin Garcia (that man sure does get around!). For 2010, the two cigar superstars have released their newest joint venture: the Dominicano. This cigar employs the use of Nicaraguan tobacco for the filler and binder, but in a first for Don Pepin, it uses a Dominican wrapper. These cigars are available in a variety of sizes and two wrapper varieties: Rosado and Oscuro. It must be noted that the colors of these two wrappers are extremely close, with the Oscuro being just a hair darker and a little duller and the Rosado having just a hint of red, most noticeable under natural light. Honestly, in the humidor at Burns, under fairly bad lighting, I cannot tell the difference. When I got these two home into better lighting...I still couldn't tell one from the other. When I took them out of the cellophane and out into sunlight, then the difference becomes evident...barely. Be careful which one you get; although I liked both, you may have a distinct preference and if you pick up the wrong one you may walk away feeling like this cigar is not worth the money. I got to meet Nestor Miranda at an event in Chattanooga last week (picture to the lower-left). He is a fun-loving and interesting man with a passion for tobacco and a good sense of humor ("I want you to keep buying cigars because I need a bigger boat! I have a 40-foot boat, I want a 45-foot!"). Today I will be looking at the Rosado version; later this week my review of the Oscuro will appear.
I have to begin by saying that the appearance was good, but not great. There were large "Frankenstein-scar" looking veins down the front of the wrapper. There was an oiliness to it, but not too much. The band was nice and semi-tropical looking; it does not look out of place here on the Tiki Bar blog at all! The aroma from the wrapper was barnyard while I got some cocoa and compost from the foot. The prelight draw was easy; there were subtle flavors of hay and creamy coffee--nothing too overt or "in your face."
Initial puffs of the Dominicano Rosado were light and mild--flavors were of hay, coffee and sweet tobacco, but as in prelight, all these were subtle and muted. Unlike many Don Pepin-crafted smokes, this one does not start off with a blast of pepper spice. In fact, there was no spice to speak of. This was a mild-to-medium bodied smoke at the start and while it was good, it did not do anything much to really impress me yet. I kept getting notes of hay and creamy coffee along with some roasted nuts in the retrohale. The burn was mostly even, wavering just a bit on the places where it encounterd those Frankenstein-scar veins.
In the second third, the stogie put up a bit of cedar and a spicy little snap, adding some dimension and complexity to what had started off fairly uninteresting. I still got some hay notes but the coffee faded and the pepper built steadily throughout the middle segment.
The final third began with another flavor change--this time to a more earthy character. There was still some pepper spice and cedar but the earth became dominant very quickly. The Dominicano Rosado tipped in at just over the halfway point in body and gave just a hint of nicotine strength occasionally. The burn was not straight, but continued to be very even and it produced a good draw with copious amounts of smoke the entire way. Although it started off fairly slow, this cigar picked up in character and interest the entire way, turning out to be a very decent medium-bodied smoke that fell in between two other Don Pepin-created medium smokes that I have had recently--I liked it better than El Triunfador, but not as much as the Vegas Cubanas. Very good cigar; definitely worth trying.
Body: 6/10
Strength: 5/109
Complexity: 7/10
AFP Scale
Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10
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