Cigar Review: E.P. Carillo New Wave Connecticut Brillantes

Robusto 5" x 50 ring gauge / $5.99, Maxamar's

This is one of the two recent release that Ernesto has added to his expanding line of cigars. I will be covering the other one in the next couple weeks. Normally I'm not that into Connecticut wrapped cigars. They just seem to have an odd and bitter taste and I usually don't enjoy them. However with the amount of positive reviews on the web, on Twitter, and the fact that I like Ernesto's other stuff I knew I had to give it a try. This cigar is comprised of Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers, with a Nicaraguan binder, and an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper. It comes in three other sizes, the 6x52 Divinos, 5 1/8 x42 Stellas, and the 7x49 Gran Via. This was the second example I'd smoked of the Brillantes, and I had smoked a couple of the Stellas as well.

The first thing I noticed is the new color of the band. I don't know if I'm all that keen on the white, but it matches the box and helps you quickly identify the line the cigar is in. The wrapper is a nice golden tan in color. There are some slight veins but nothing too noticeable. The wrapper actually has a small amount of tooth and oil to it which is rare in a Connecticut wrapped cigar. When I gave the cigar a squeeze it felt firmly packed and there weren't any soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got notes of hay and earth, with hay and alfalfa coming from the foot. After clipping the cigar with my Xikar MTX and taking a cold draw on it I was rewarded with a fairly free draw with some notes of chocolate on the tongue.

Once I lit the cigar I was hit with a very intense almost wasabi spice on the retrohale. Definitely not something I was expecting from a Connecticut cigar. After taking a few more puffs on it I tasted chocolate, earth and leather. So far this cigar was very different than most Connecticut cigars I've tried and I was really enjoying it. The draw was perfect and it produced a large volume of smoke. The burn was kind of ragged at this point but I decided to not touch it up and see what happened. The wind was blowing pretty steadily so that might have been part of the cause. After about three quarters of a inch the spice toned down, but didn't go away. The flavors of hay, salt and cream started to come through as well. After about an inch I tapped off the nearly white ash.


As I started the second third the burn evened itself out without any touch-ups. The spice was still present although not as strong as the first third. The main flavors I was able to detect were of earth and wood. I can say I was definitely enjoying this cigar.

The final third saw this cigar finish off strong. The flavors didn't change though. I will definitely be picking more of these cigars up to have on hand to smoke with a cup of coffee in the morning or to start off the afternoon with. I can say that I really enjoyed this cigar. I did prefer the robusto size to the corona size though. I felt that it has more flavors. I can also highly recommend this cigar to pretty much any smoker. While it is a little stronger than most Connecticut wrapped cigars, there wasn't a nicotine hit. With the near perfect construction, great flavors, and reasonable price you can't go wrong.

Body: 7/10

Strength: 6/10

Complexity: 6/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 2/2

Construction: 2/2

Flavor: 4.5/5

Value: 1/1

Total: 9.5/10

Have you tried this cigar? If so, what did you think? Leave a comment below...