Cordoba & Morales Family Reserve Great Complex Flavor

What can you say about an up and coming your cigar company that is founded in a hundred year old tradition.  With a background in the Pinar del Rio area of Cuba, grandma taught them how to grow and blend.  Today they use twenty-first century marketing to bring their cigars to us.  When I reach into the humidor and find a cigar from Cordoba & Morales I know that I am going to enjoy myself.

At first look you notice this is a nice box pressed cigar.  The Ecudorian Habano wrapper gives it a nice rich deep chocolate color.  The cigar lights well after an easy punch.  The wrapper is veiny and oily with a well applied cap.

The cigar is very well constructed.  The box press is nice and tight and it creates an almost square ash.  The draw was open and smooth for the entire smoke.

The flavor of this cigar is complex and balanced.  At first I was getting hints of chocolate and that mellowed as the cigar smoked.  With each puff the flavors changed finally morphing, in the last third to a full bodied long finishing cigar with notes of pepper and spice.  This is a hard flavor profile to pin down since it varies so much form beginning to end.  At first, I would think of this as a medium bodied or ‘lunch’ cigar, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t ready for some spice.  I definitely enjoyed this stick and found it to be a nice way to ease into a mid afternoon smoke.  By the time I was relaxed the strength of the cigar took over.  Now, if only it came with bourbon.

At a list price of $8.00 this is usually a little more than I want to pay.  But because of the complexity of the flavor, I think this is a good value and belongs in every humidor.