Wrapper: Habano Rosado Oscuro / Nicaragua
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Size: Guard / Toro (6 x 50)
Strength: Full
Body: Full
Price: $58.50 per 10-pack ($5.85 per cigar), Atlantic Cigar; same price for VIP members
Factory: Plasencia Cigars S.A., Estelí, Nicaragua
Blender: Rafael Nodal, Pedro Ventura / Grupo de Maestros, and Nestor Andrés Plasencia
Release: May 2019 (Regular Production)
Smoking Time: 1:20
Experience Rating: 97
I reviewed this back in December of last year, but I got the sticks back in October. In my original review, I described a cigar whose creamy smoothness hid just how strong it was.
Cedar and white pepper gave way to black pepper, baking spices, cacao, coffee, and roasted nuts, with a fruity sweetness in the background. Those were familiar flavors, but the little things popping in and out kept grabbing my attention: floral notes, honey, lemon peel, different nuts, even guacamole.
There was so much movement in both flavor and intensity that describing it in thirds didn’t make sense. By the end, the strength had me wondering if my eyeballs were going to pop out, but the cigar maintained an elegance that made the whole experience a pleasure.
A year later, I’m scratching my head.
Can a cigar become even smoother? Even more elegant?
What I’m seeing with the year-old stick I’m smoking right now is a profile that’s even more refined and integrated. This is a Nic puro, but its elegance rivals some of the best Dominican sticks I’ve smoked.
The strength that originally bowled me over no longer hits me the same way. It’s not weaker. But instead of being overtly muscular, it’s much more refined in how it shows up. It reminds me of Vladimir Shmondenko, aka Anatoly on YouTube.
If you’ve seen his videos, you know the routine. He shows up at a gym dressed as a cleaner, looking considerably smaller than the huge guys with bulging muscles working out around him. Then he casually picks up a loaded barbell they’ve been struggling with, and the looks on their faces are priceless. This guy who supposedly came over to mop the floor just made their heavy lift look like he was moving something out of the way.
One of the funniest things he does is hand those same guys his 32 kg mop, which he swings around as if it weighs a couple of pounds at most. Many of these huge guys can’t even lift it with one hand.
That’s what I’m getting from the Espada Oscuro now. A year ago, this cigar eventually let me know how much weight it was lifting. Now, it makes carrying that weight seem effortless.
As for the flavor profile, it’s incredibly hard to describe.
In my original review, I could see individual flavors distinctly. But with age, the flavors are so integrated with each other that it’s difficult to make out where one starts and ends.
The movement is different now as well.
Previously, the flavors danced around my mouth, popping in and out of view. Now they’re like a continuous three-dimensional swirl. It’s like looking at one of those videos where a painter adds a bunch of colors to a container, then uses a stick to create a swirling effect. You can still make out individual colors, but they mix with surrounding colors, blurring their boundaries.
Furthermore, like a container of swirled paint, though you can’t see them, you intuitively know there are more layers underneath what’s visible. That’s the heart of the complexity in this cigar. I can taste flavors on the surface, but I have an implicit sense that the profile is deep. Very deep.
As a funny aside, I just realized something about the bands. When I first smoked one, I thought the bands were a little ostentatious; a little luxury-signaling to justify the comparatively high retail price. I used to remove the bottom band entirely before I lit up the cigar because I thought it was a sleeve. Then it hit me: there’s a reason the secondary band is perforated. You’re supposed to remove them in stages. Ostentatious for sure, but mixed with a little practicality.
So the big question is this: How do I like it after a year?
I still love it. Maybe a little more. That refined elegance resonates with me on a different level, enough to give it a slightly higher rating.
It has definitely improved with age.
What’s remarkable about this cigar is that it is proof that cigars continually change over time. But more importantly, different cigars age differently. Some become more expressive. Others, like the Espada Oscuro, become more refined. This is the reason I always buy multiples of a cigar when I find one I like. For me, the hobby isn’t just about smoking a lot of different cigars, which I do, but also about seeing how they change over time.
The best place to buy these is Atlantic. They sell 10-packs for $58.50, roughly half the price of the next lowest retailer, JR Cigars, which sells them for $119/box. I stocked up on them last year and still have over 20 left, thinking that they’d run out. They eventually did, but they’re available again.
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