I know, when I hear Santiago de los Caballeros I think of the city in the Dominican Republic, but it’s also the extended name of León Santiago de los Caballeros in Nicaragua. León is the second largest city in Nicaragua, it was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba and was the original capital of Nicaragua. Last summer at the IPCPR show I paid a visit to Colin Ganley to sample his Twin Engine coffee, which I’d heard wonderful things about. While sampling his delicious iced coffee, as it was after lunch, he took me over to meet his friends at Santiago de los Caballero Cigars, a relatively unknown cigar company that he was very enthusiastic about. The folks there provided me with samples of each of their cigars, a Maduro, a Habano and a Connecticut in a classic robusto size. This week I finally got around to smoking them.
Of course, I started with the Maduro. The Maduro has a San Andrés wrapper, a Nicaraguan binder and fillers from Nicaragua and Mexico. The whole line is only available in robusto and toro, and I found myself wishing that I had the toro! This was a great cigar, full flavored, some decent strength, and a perfect draw. The robusto ended too soon! It was an earthy, chocolaty and creamy. I gotta find some more of these.
Tuesday I smoked the Habano. The primary difference is the Ecuador Habano wrapper, which lends a nice spice to the blend. I put this on the fuller side of medium also, and, like the Maduro and Connecticut, has a nice, soft box press. I had a little bit of a crooked burn, but it was windy and I was smoking it very slowly. A quick relight and everything was perfect. I smoked this to a finger burning nub, again, I want to try the toro.
Tonight I tackled the Connecticut. The wrapper on this is listed as Connecticut seed Talanga, leading me to believe that it’s grown in Honduras. The binder is Nicaraguan, and the filler is made up of Nicaraguan tobaccos from Jalapa, Esteli and Condega. I naturally expected a milder cigar, and it was milder than the previous two, but was still loaded with flavor. It burned perfectly, and I got to about a half an inch before I had to put it down. It had some sweet spice, nuts and a creamy texture, and was very good. I actually couldn’t pick a favorite out of the three as they all have a lot to offer.
So, I’m asking myself why it took me eight months to get around to these trade show samples, and all I can say is that there’s a lot of great new cigars out there to try, and now and then stuff gets moved to the back of the humidor and overlooked. This is a line that shouldn’t be overlooked.
That’s all for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
