Unco B's Stogie Diary

Cigar Page House Blends I’ve Reviewed

House blends are supposed to suck.

And that’s what I originally thought of Cigar Page house blends. They’re cheap. They have ridiculous names and prices that make you wonder what had to be sacrificed. But after reviewing several of them, I’ve come to a realization.

Cigar Page isn’t messing around.

Here are the Cigar Page blends I’ve reviewed so far. Except for one, they all scored 90 or higher. They’re delicious. Each one has a distinct identity. And most importantly, they’re unapologetic about who they are.

Cigar Name	Summary	Purchase
Antihero Toro Deluxe Tubo Rating: 92	A Nicaraguan puro filled with espresso, cocoa, roasted peanuts, black pepper, cream, and banana. Flavors organize into a steady profile before dried fruit, bread, molasses, soy sauce, and hazelnut add some movement in the second half. It isn’t especially complex, but it remains composed and articulate as the strength builds. A smooth glide with a Nicaraguan theme.	Buy here
CigarPage Scratch Blends Retrohale #1 Rating: 92	Bright, approachable, and remarkably articulate. Cedar, citrus, coffee with cream, baking spices, green tea, bread, and malt accumulate around a light frame, while little flickers keep the experience moving. The spice climbs gradually, but the cigar never becomes harsh or loses its composure, even in the final inch. It’s simply a great cigar to smoke at any time of day.	Buy here
Hoofty Toro Tubo Rating: 92	The Hoofty begins with cedar, leather, coffee, cocoa, and gentle spice before forming a stable core around coffee, leather, and charred oak. Floral notes, sweetbread, malt, citrus, minerality, and mushroom-like umami move through the foreground without disturbing that structure. It doesn’t demand attention, but it gives you enough movement to keep the hour interesting and remains enjoyable down to the nub.	Buy here
Megilla Limited Edition Shofar Salamon Rating: 92	The Shofar never settles into a pattern you can comfortably follow. A stable core keeps the experience together, while the different wrappers continually interrupt it, knocking the profile off course before it regains its composure and moves again. The precision of the figurado almost becomes part of the joke. It looks serious, then spends the entire smoke fucking with you. It’s just plain fun.	Buy here
Megilla Miami Toro Rating: 94	A refined and composed Connecticut that remains flavorful all the way to the nub. Cream lays the foundation while citrus, cedar, vanilla crème, leather, nougat, malt, cashew, sourdough, and coffee build into a firm core. The transitions move slowly around it like a pendulum, and the profile continues gathering depth without becoming harsh or collapsing. Once the core forms, the rest of the cigar is one long sweet spot.	Buy here
Megilla MSA Salamone Rating: 95	The Megilla MSA Salamone is the kind of cigar that challenges the assumptions we bring to inexpensive cigars. At first glance, it’s easy to overlook a budget-friendly house blend, but Raymond Pagès built something far more interesting than the price suggests. Like a piece of traditional Balinese music, the cigar is full of movement, with different elements appearing, disappearing, and interacting throughout the smoke. It isn’t trying to overwhelm you with power or luxury. It simply delivers a surprisingly complex and engaging experience that proves a cigar’s value isn’t always measured by its price tag.	Buy here
Penn Standard Gold Standard Toro Deluxe Tubo Rating: 90	Bright Connecticut character rides over a surprisingly muscular Pennsylvania Broadleaf foundation. Cedar, coffee with cream, yeasty bread, baking spices, citrus, and orange peel lead early before the profile darkens into caramel, leather, charred oak, and espresso. The Broadleaf gives the cigar mass and structure without dragging it down, while the orange peel keeps lifting the experience. The recurring wrapper crack was a construction flaw, but the cigar itself remained composed and enjoyable.	Buy here
Penn Standard Pennsylvania Broadleaf Rating: 94	I dig this smoke. This is a mildly playful cigar in that it doesn’t start revealing its true nature until the second half. It allows you to just sit and enjoy it and let your mind wander for the first half, then it hits with force. After writing my review, I realized that like the Megilla Limited Edition Shofar, Raymond Pages really messes with you. I’m seeing that pattern quite a bit in his cigars.	Buy here
Your Mom Toro Rating: 90	A deliberately irreverent cigar that turned out to be far more serious in the smoke than its name suggests. Black pepper, fresh peppercorn, coffee, cream, earth, chocolate, leather, cedar, malt, and grilled meat build slowly around a grounded core. It remains steady and articulate through most of the experience before the earth, spice, and nicotine take over near the nub. A surprisingly good and solid value-priced cigar.	Buy here
Oliva Black Swan Rating: 95	The Black Swan opens with Oliva’s distinctive teak character before the Connecticut Broadleaf brings sweetness, cedar, forest floor, dark chocolate, espresso, burnt caramel, and leather. Citrus and spice build through the second half without overwhelming the profile. The Broadleaf is what makes the blend: dark, rich, sweet, and chocolatey. It punches well above its weight and has become a cigar I want to keep stocked.	Buy here
E.P. Carrillo Black Swan Rating: 88	The EPC Black Swan starts out promising with white pepper, malt, cream, green bell pepper, cayenne, espresso, vanilla, dark chocolate, beer malt, earth, barnyard, leather, and sourdough, all moving through a thick, creamy profile, with the halfway point delivering the cigar’s best run of transitions. But it loses momentum in the home stretch, and more than six months of additional age only made it smoother. It never became as compelling as the other versions. YMMV!	Buy here
Joya de Nicaragua Black Swan Corona Rating: 95	Funky mushroom, wet grass, earth, pepper, espresso, cocoa, sourdough, nuts, and marzipan move through a creamy, balanced profile. It isn’t packed with flavors in every puff, but the transitions give it plenty of movement, and the unusual vegetal and fungal qualities develop into something closer to aged cheese near the end. It combines approachability with real aging potential and continued to get better after several months in the humidor.	Buy here
Joya de Nicaragua Black Swan Robusto Rating: 96	The Robusto carries the same basic profile as the Corona but presents it with a much lighter touch. The vegetal and mushroom qualities pull back, allowing nuts, chocolate malt, marzipan, earth, and gentle spice to come forward. It gives up some of the intensity of the Corona in exchange for greater smoothness, balance, and nuance. The result is sublime and, for me, was the best expression of the Black Swan line at the time.	Buy here
El Titan de Bronze Black Swan Corona Gorda Rating: 96	The El Titan de Bronze Black Swan Corona Gorda starts deceptively moderate, spending the first half in a relaxed glide built on balance, cream, caramel, hazelnut, floral sweetness, sweet bread, and a fruity Ethiopian coffee note. It doesn’t have a conventional core early, but nothing feels out of place. Coffee finally becomes the central pillar in the home stretch, and from there the cigar steadily gains muscle, darkness, and activity. Espresso, black pepper, vanilla crème, and pulsing spice drive the final couple of inches as the profile compresses without collapsing. By the nub, it’s still building, still complex, and still refusing to lie down.	Buy here

A Note on Raymond Pages

With the exception of the Black Swan line and Scratch Blends Retrohale #1, Raymond Pages blended the Cigar Page cigars I’ve reviewed here. I admit that I didn’t take him seriously as a blender, even though he was noted as being A.J. Fernandez’s right-hand man for a decade. The snob in me would see his name and immediately think, “That’s the guy who blends those cheap Cigar Page cigars.”

But after smoking and reviewing so many of his blends, I realized that my knee-jerk reaction was unjust. And if I’m really being honest, I was being a bit of a pompous asshole, falling into the same trap I’ve warned against: believing that a low price must mean low quality.

I wrote “Good Is Good, No Matter What It Costs” a few days after reviewing the Penn Standard Gold Standard, and I had that cigar and the other Cigar Page blends in mind when I wrote it. I rated every one of them 90 or higher.

They were all just damn good cigars!

Scores that high don’t come from a blender who’s just throwing tobacco together. I could identify real intent and architecture behind every one of them. Because of that, I now have a real appreciation for Raymond Pages’ skill and talent as a blender.

What makes that even more impressive is that he appears to be working under tight budget controls. You don’t create cigars this inexpensive out of expensive tobacco. He has to find tobacco that fits the budget, understand what it can do, and build around it.

That puts the focus entirely on his ability to source tobacco and make intelligent choices with it. The price may limit what he can spend, but it doesn’t limit what he can create. Based on the scores I’ve given, what he can create under those constraints is often superb.

So consider this a public apology for my initial shortsightedness. I now look at Raymond Pages as one of the most creative and talented blenders in the industry.