Cigar Review: San Lotano Habano Torpedo

Torpedo, 6.5" x 52 ring gauge / $7.99

First off I'd like to apologize for the even worse than normal photography. I normally use the sun as an extra amount of light but when it has come time to take the photographs there hasn't been any sun. Hopefully we will get back to the great Southern California weather. Now on to the cigar. Today's cigar is the San Lotano Habano Torpedo. This is one of A.J. Fernandez's latest releases, and his first B&M only release. He came out with three different blends a Connecticut, Maduro and today's cigar the Habano. Each blend comes in four different sizes a robusto, toro, Churchill and today's cigar the torpedo. This cigar is made up of Dominican, Honduran & Nicaraguan fillers with a Honduran binder all covered in a Brazilian habano wrapper. I have smoked at least 3 of this size and at least one sample from all of the other sizes in this blend.

Giving the cigar a good once over I'm impressed at the overall look of the cigar. The band is very colorful with the second band letting you know which blend it is. The wrapper is a beautiful mahogany color with lots of oils and some amount of tooth. The wrapper had some veins to it but they didn't detract from the looks of it. When I gave the cigar a squeeze I wasn't able to detect any soft spots and noted that the cigar was fairly firmly packed. Putting my nose to the wrapper I was able to get the slight aroma of barnyard, and a more intense aroma of barnyard and hay from the foot. Clipping the cigar and taking a cold draw on it I got a very good draw and the taste of leather.

Lighting this cigar up the first thing that hits me is the spice on the retrohale. It isn't painful but it is definitely there. On the tongue I detect the flavors of leather and cream. The draw on this cigar is great and produces a large volume of smoke. One thing I've noticed is the toro and robusto seem to have less draw issues while the Churchill and torpedo tend to be a little more inconsistent in that area. Progressing through the first third the spice also started my tongue tingling. I was also getting the flavors of earth and leather with a slight sweetness on the finish. The ash was very white with only a few specs of black in it and needed to be tapped off at 1.25". The burn was slightly uneven although it didn't require a touch up. The cigar was at the lower end of full strength at this point.

Moving on into the second third didn't see much change in the flavors. The prominent flavors of leather spice, cream, earth with a molasses sweet finish were consistent through this third. The draw continuted to be almost perfect producing large volumes of smoke. The burn almost evened itself out. The cigar continue to be at the bottom end of full on the strength scale and definitely full bodied as well.

The final third saw this cigar finish strong. While the flavors didn't change the cigar was very enjoyable. The one thing I noticed by the beginning of the final third was it felt as though my tongue felt like it was coated. It wasn't gross or unpleasant just an interesting sensation. The burn did become slightly uneven, but it didn't require me to break out a lighter as it didn't get that bad.

I can definitely say this cigar is one of my favorite new releases this year. With a lot of flavor, near perfect construction and reasonable price you can't go wrong. I will say that I prefer the toro size more but when I went in to purchase this review stick all he had out was this size. I think this cigar deserves a box purchase when I can come up with the funds and the room to store it. I would caution the newer smokers when smoking this. While it doesn't have a huge nicotine kick it is still fairly strong so if you wanted to try it make sure you had a full stomach and a nice place to sit.

Body: 8/10

Strength: 8/10

Complexity: 6/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 2/2

Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 5/5

Value: 1/1

Total: 9.5/10

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