The Good Stuff:

The Cohiba Macassar follows in the footsteps of a collaborative effort between Cohiba and rapper Jay Z in that it features tobacco aged in rum barrels. The Macassar features a Connecticut Habano wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf binder, and filler tobacco from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua that were aged for at least 4 years, including a final year of aging in rum barrels. The Cohiba Macassar comes in 3 sizes, the Double Corona (7 1/4 x 54), the Gigante (6 x 60) and the Toro Grande (6 x 52). Each come packaged in boxes of 10 and will run a whopping $21.99 – $24.99 a stick and are a regular production cigar being produced at General Cigar Dominicana. Big thanks goes out to General Cigar for sending samples our way to review.

Size: 6 x 52
Wrapper: Connecticut Habano
Binder: Connecticut Broadleaf
Filler: Aged Nicaraguan and Dominican
Body: Medium/Full
Strength: Medium
Pairing: Modern Times Haunted Stars (Imperial Rye Porter 8% ABV)
Price: $21.99

Prelight:

The Cohiba Macassar carries a very dark, consistent brown wrapper. There is a small bit of noticeable higher areas scattered throughout the natural webbing on the cigar’s wrapper. The wrapper’s texture is slightly toothy and extremely oily. It feels very thick and very rigid as the cigar is packed pretty tightly resulting in one heavy object. I noticed only a few very minor veins running the course of the cigar’s body as the wrapper is laid perfecttly, and seamlessly over itself leading up to a snubby, round, double cap. The most noticeable characteristic of this cigar though, is just how dull the band is. Being that it’s a $20+ cigar I would have expected a little more than just your standard Cohiba red dot logon on some simple, silver band. But thats neither here nor there, its whats inside the band that counts.

The wrapper on the Cohiba Macassar gives off some slight leather, spice, and espresso while the foot of the cigar is more natural with some grainy/earthy aromas, spice, and tobacco. The cap cut clean and easily using my Xikar double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces some subtle sweetness, molasses, tobacco, and musk flavors.

First Third:

Into the first third of the Cohiba Macassar and the body starts out a bit bolder than I expected. Leading with some brown sugar, honey, musk and coffee with some slight cocoa and clove at the end. Its a great mixture of flavors. The draw on the cigar is flawless. Each little puff kicks out a desirable amount of thick white smoke that even hangs around despite the windy weather I’m experiencing out here. The burn line has a few slight waves, but is pretty sharp for the most part leaving behind a tightly compacted trail of medium gray ash which fell into my ashtray after about 3/4 of an inch.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Cohiba Macassar and the flavors haven’t changed up too much, they did however cream out and become more balanced. The main flavor is the coffee and musk at this point with clove and honey backing them up and some slight sweetness on the aftertaste. While I didn’t pick up too much pepper during the standard smoking experience, it’s very evident in the retrohale and not something I find myself coding too often on this cigar. The burn line is still slightly wavy but I haven’t had to reach for my torch yet. I cloud out the second this with only a very slight nicotine kick.

Finish:

Settling into the final third of the Cohiba Macassar and the flavors still remain much of the same. I enjoy the flavors quite a bit, but it would be nice to see some more changeups here. The profile now leads with musk and coffee backed by the clove, honey, sweetness, and a real nice earthiness. I took this cigar down to the very nub and I experienced absolutely no harshness, nor extra heat. After almost 2 hours I put it down and walked away with only a very minor nicotine kick. I never once had to reach for my torch to either touch up or relight this cigar.

Overview:

All in all I thought that the Cohiba Macassar would a fantastic cigar. The flavors were great, complex enough, and the burn experience was fantastic. That being said, it’s a hard reach for just about any cigar to be worth over $20 in my opinion nowadays. But I did enjoy it, and at the end that’s all that really matters right?

Pairing:

I decided to pair this cigar with Modern Times Haunted Stars. Haunted Stars is a 8% Imperial Rye Porter brewed at the Modern Times Brewery in San Diego, California. The Modern Times Haunted Stars starts out with some great chocolate, roasted malt, grain, and slight hopiness with a very light mouthfeel refinishing finished with more chocolate, roasted malt, coconut, and hop. It’s a pretty straight forward beer and I found that it paired up with the flavors in the Cohiba Macassar wonderfully. Especially the chocolate and malt. I’d also see myself pairing this cigar with a nice Belgian Bruin, Ruby Port, of even some creamed coffee.

The post Cohiba Macassar appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

Cohiba Robustos

 This stick was sent over to me in a bomb by pretty much my most loyal reader not only abroad, but probably globally as well. Thanks Sergeant! I know some of the slack that I will get off of this review is the fact that I didn’t age this cigar for more than a month or two. I know, I know, Cubans need more time in the humidor, but you know what? Who cares? Ha, I’m antsy and wanted to get this thing going.

The Good Stuff: I didn’t do much digging around on the Cohiba Robustos post-smoke. I really didn’t want to taint my views of it prior to smoking it as it will be my first Cuban cigar review. So skipping all that messy business I am just going to go straight into the review.

One note to any novice cigar smokers out there. This cigar isn’t to be confused with the Domican Cohiba Robusto made by General cigar (greenish grey band). Two totally different smokes.

Size: 5 x 50  –  Wrapper:Natual Cuban  –  Binder/Filler: Cuban  –  Body: Medium/Full

Cohiba Robustos

Prelight: The Cohiba Robustos cigar has a very consistent light to medium brown wrapper polished off with a smooth, rounded double/triple capped head. This cigar is extremely firm to the touch and VERY tightly packed. I’ve noticed that to be a trend in most Cuban cigars that I have had as of late. There is one very large vein running the entire length of the cigar that I am hoping won’t be too much of a burden. The area around the foot seems to provide the only soft spot, with the rest of the cigar sporting perfect construction. The wrapper doesn’t give off much of a scent at all, just a bit of tobacco and grassy aroma. The foot of the cigar carries a similar, just more pronounced story.

I had no difficulty clipping the head of this cigar using my double bladed Palio cutter. The cold draw produced very earth tastes with hints of grass and spice. Where as the wrapper itself gave off a very bitter, almost tart taste that I am hoping isn’t present the entire experience. This Cohiba lit up fairly quickly under my triple flame butane torch.

Cohiba Robustos

First Smoke: I am eager to get this Cohiba up and running. After the first few puffs the Cohiba Robustos produces a nice, clean, thick draw. I was concerned that the tightly packed cigar would produce a plugged draw, but that wasn’t the case. Extremely effortless. The initial flavors were very nutty, with a bit of tobacco, honey, and grassed mixed in there. The wrapper is still producing this strange bitterness, but the more I smoke, the more the bitterness fades out and is quickly replaced with a sweetness. Thank god. I don’t know why that bitterness was there, or where it came from. The Cohiba robustos produces quite a bit of stationary smoke, luckily the scent is filled with burning wood and a bit of tobacco. Early into the smoke the burn line already started to take off in a bunch of random thick waves. No need for touch ups yet, but I am almost certain these won’t even themselves out. The ash left behind was very flaky, but thick and a dark grey color with darker grey striped. The ash held on for a little over an inch before giving out.

Cohiba Robustos

Halfway There: As expected I needed quite a touch up after the first ash drop. One portion of the cigar was burning quite a bit faster than the other half. I’m used to most of the Nicaraguan blends that I smoke starting off with a punch of pepper, and then fading away. In the case of the Cohiba the tale was much different. Halfway through I started to pick up a very dominant pepper flavor, along with pine and honey. Needless to say the flavors are comforting and so far the smoke is very smooth with no signs of nicotine at all. The burn line hasn’t gotten any better, but it isn’t as bad as I began with.

Cohiba Robustos

Finish: The Cohiba Robustos finished just as smooth at it stated. I smoked this cigar down in just a little over an hour and I can honestly say I walked away feeling no nicotine kick at all. The pepper flavor faded way towards the least third and left behindvery woodsy, sweet honey and tobacco flavors in which I really enjoyed. The burn seems to be the only redheaded stepchild in this cigar. It really did have a mind of its own. I did need a few more slight touch up towards the end of the second third, but those were more of just me being anal and probably weren’t “necessary”. One interesting not was that I was able to take this cigar well into the nub without the increased amount of heat that I am used to. I’m not sure if this was due to the Cuban tobacco, or the massive amount of tobacco packed into this cigar. Maybe even a mixture of both.

Cohiba Robustos

Overview: All in all this was a tasty cigar. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a high-quality Cuban stick. But it just didn’t do as much for me as I wanted it to. Not to say this wasn’t a great stick, there are just quite a few more available cigars that I would choose over this one. I guess I was just expecting gold. A lot of this was due to the burn, and the mild flavors. The flavor change-ups were extremely intriguing and kept my attention, but I would have wanted to see a bit more, bolder flavors in the mixutre. I would honestly love to pick up a couple more, as I’m sure this is a cigar that would grow on me. But we’ll just have to see how that goes.

Cohiba Robustos

Pairing: This Cohiba Robustos was paired with some Klosterbrau Braun’s Weisse that was sent over to me within the bomb. I haven’t had this beer before, and probably would never have the chance to have it again, but it was a nice, full heffeweise and paired great with the Cohiba. The sweetness helped pick up the subtle honey and pine flavors as the slight bitter after taste helped clean the pallet before each puff. Great Little beer. I would also recommend a Dunkel-weissen with this cigar. It’ll just add to the overall flavor of the cigar.

Cohiba Robustos and Klosterbrau Braun's Weisse

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