Purchased: Toro 4-pack
Store: Every Day Is Cigar Day
Price: $24.99
Buy again? Oh yeah…
Box worthy? Yeah… Oh yeah…
Having gone all-in on the hobby, I participate in a few cigar forums online. One of them is r/EveryDayIsCigarDay on Reddit. When I first joined, I had no idea that the moderator, Andrius Petrucenia, had his own cigar brand. I thought the sub was dedicated to his journey of leaving everything behind in the UK and moving to Nicaragua to be part of the cigar-making culture. And for months, I thought he worked for some marca out there. On the contrary, he indeed dropped everything and moved to Nicaragua, but then proceeded to make his own brand called Every Day Is Cigar Day along with this partner, Paul Anthony, whom he had met on Davidoff factory tour.
On the surface, one might think, “That’s a cool story, but c’mon there are tons of brands out there.” But a brand whose sales model is direct-to-consumer to cut out the middleman and pass the cost-savings onto their customers? I don’t know of any other brand that does this.
But there is a hitch to that model. In order to move product, the products must be top-quality because typically, companies that use this model also cut costs by not doing active advertising and don’t spend nearly the amount of money as their competitors on packaging. Luckily for us, the quality and, more importantly, the flavor of the cigars rival cigars that cost five times as much, which brings me to the subject of this post: The Ecuadorian Habano.
The first thing I noticed when I picked up this stick to smoke was that it looked like a much more expensive cigar. The stick was dead straight with a nice, smooth wrapper showing small veins. The seams were visible but were tight. Plus, the cigar was packed! It was a very skilled roller who rolled this cigar!
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much out of the cigar, but when I lit it up, all bets were off. I was immediately assailed with notes of cream, toasted cashew, dark honey, leather, and earth. That took me completely by surprise. As I got a few puffs in, the strength immediately established itself as medium- with a solid medium body.
Getting into the first third, a slightly sour, citrus note showed up on the finish. The previous notes were all there, then bam! A touch of creamy milk chocolate entered the fray. The experience was similar to eating a Hershey’s chocolate bar. But in this case, the cigar wasn’t sweet, but the smoke gave me the impression of milk chocolate sweetness with a sour finish, which is a hallmark of Hershey’s milk chocolate. Magical.
At the halfway point, the cigar started to introduce savory elements, with a little salt and something reminiscent of BBQ pulled pork. Strength kicked up to medium but the body was only slightly thicker than in the first third. Unfortunately, I had to let it burn out at that point as I had to attend a meeting.
When I finished the meeting, I went back out to re-light the cigar. I wasn’t expecting much because re-lights are always a dicey proposition. But after scraping the old ash off and doing a purge, the cigar just took off again as if I’d never left.
The flavor bomb hit in the final third. There were no new flavors added to the mix other than a touch of spiciness, but there was suddenly more. The smoke became thick and rich with all the assorted flavors in balance with each other. I just sat in my camp chair in my garage with a smile on my face.
I nubbed this one. How could I not? It was amazingly delicious to the end! These are definitely going to be in my regular rotation!
Unco B's Stogie Diary 