I haven’t done a review in a minute between being busy and having a head cold for a few days around Thanksgiving. I am finally feeling up to tackling the review process again. I have been working on cleaning up my garage and getting a better woodworking setup for the space. This morning I am prepping my workbench for a new wood vise. I have to do some planing, marking, and drilling. I grabbed the new Crowned Heads Cigars Azul Y Oro Limited Edition to review today. This cigar is the first new release from Crowned Heads that is out of the NACSA factory. This cigar is limited to 2500 boxes and pays homage to the friendship formed many years back between Crowned Heads founders, Jon Huber and Mike Conder, and head of NACSA, Gus Cura.
Country of Origin: Nicaragua
Factory: Nicaragua American Cigars S.A.
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Vitola: 6 x 50 Toro
Price: $11.95 MSRP
Link to Purchase: Guitars & Cigars Farm (Use code WW10 to save 10%)
Release Date: November 2022
Company Website: www.crownedheads.com
I love the simplicity of the presentation for this cigar. The cigar itself looks amazing, with a clean, leathery, oily brown wrapper. It is pretty firmly packed and fairly dense. It smells earthy with a bit of ammonia, some dates, and cacao. The cold draw is like fruit punch and spices. First light is met by medium bodied smoke with medium-full flavors of a slightly acidic coffee, sweet earth, a bit of citrus, and leather. The coffee note is very clear and apparent. Here in the beginning it takes some double puffing to get good smoke output. About 3/4 of an inch in there’s some dark, oily baking spice notes joining the profile. Nearing the end of this third the cigar is starting to offer a bit more smoke without double puffing. Coming to the end of the first third the profile has plenty of tangy citrus sweetness and spices. A bit of the date and leather notes are still lingering. Approaching halfway the flavor and body are up to full and I just got a blast of brown sugar. It goes perfect with the spices in the profile. This brown sugar and spice combination remains for most of the second third. Entering the final third the performance has been perfect. The profile still has the spices and brown sugar, but is adding an umami like earthiness and some bread. This is an interesting and tasty combination of flavors. Nearing the band I get the first glimpse of pepper from this cigar, yet it’s not overpowering. There’s more citrus working back into the profile. Coming to an end at an hour and 32 minutes there’s not much to report in terms of flavors. The performance remained flawless throughout.
Overall Experience
Overall I thought this was an excellent first release from NACSA for Crowned Heads. Though there were not a tons of transitions, the profile was super solid throughout and kept my attention the whole time.The cigar had a darker feel to it with the spices, leather, and earth that were there through various points in the experience, however, the way that citrus was mixed in throughout added a nice pop of brighter tang and sweetness. The addition of dates and brown sugar in the profile were very nice and added nice depth and complexity. I realize as I write this that I did not add any retrohale notes when I was smoking this. I certainly did retrohale, and I recall it adding to the brighter, sweeter components of the smoke, however I guess I was out of practice and just forgot to note specifics at the time of smoking. As always, it is worth mentioning that the performance was perfect throughout. This was a very well done cigar and I definitely recommend grabbing multiples before they’re gone. I think the future looks bright for this combination of Company and factory.
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