Another Great Cigar from Tiant – Habana Rodado

As promised, let’s talk about the band on the Taint cigars.  Both the Rosado (red) and the Oscuro (blue) have the same band image, albeit with different colors.  The band looks like a traditional cigar band, not overly large or ornate.  It has embossed gold writing on a red or blue background.  A filigree wreath encircles the center of the band with numbers on the right and left.  The left number is 23, representing Louis Tiant’s jersey number from his days as a baseball pitcher.  The number in the top center circle is 229, Tiant’s major league win total, and finally the number on the right is 75, a significant number not only for Tiant himself, he won two games in the 1975 World Series, but also for the Tiant family as that was the year that Louis parents were finally allowed by Castro to leave Cuba and be reunited with their son.  Regardless, the Tiant family has roots in Cuba, and an outline of the shape of the island is in the background of the band.

The cigar itself is a nice easy going smoke.  It presents well, lights easily and has no bitter starting taste.  I was smoking the Torpedo and I enjoyed it.

As I smoke the cigar burns very evenly and holds a nice almost white ash.  This is the hall mark of a well made cigar.  These cigars are made by Don ‘Pepin’ Garcia in Nicaragua and it is clear that they represent his skill level in production.

The cigar has an almost sweet flavor with some spice and cinnamon.  As I progress through the smoke I get a subtle shift int he sweetness to an almost caramel flavor.  Because of the underlying spice, the sweet never becomes cloying and fades towards the end of the smoke.

At around $8.00 this is not an inexpensive cigar, but it has a complex flavor profile that makes it very much worthwhile.  I am glad to have a fw more of these in my humidor.