Crave the Clave from Cordoba & Morales

Cordoba & Morales are known for continuing the Cuban traditions in cigar making. At the 2014 IPCPR they provided us with a sample of their Clave Cubana Etiqueta Blanca (white label), whose production is limited to 1,000 boxes. The Clave comes in 3 vitolas (robusto, toro and toro gordo) and our sample was the toro, a 6 X 54 box pressed cigar.

The clave is a musical instrument – a pair of short thick dowels that look like a pair of 6 X 60 Gordo’s – used to make background rhythm in Latin music. Borrowing on this theme, the toro looks like a clave instrument and the cigar’s label has a staff with notes filled in.

Cordoba and Morale’s Clave has a filler blend of Ligero, Viso and Seco from Nicaragua, a binder from Nicaragua, all wrapped by a San Andres maduro tobacco. The pre-smoke aroma was of earth and coffee. The initial flavor was a nice cocoa and coffee mix that was joined later with light white pepper. The San Andres wrapper delivered the usual background sweetness and there was a hint of spice in the final third. The draw was very easy with a good volume of smoke. Unfortunately the burn was slightly uneven and the ash was quite flakey.

It took 1 hour to smoke this medium to full bodied cigar. The SRP is $10.50 but it can be found on line for 15% less. The mild construction issue and slightly elevated price impact the overall rating – a 3.3 out of 5.