Cabaiguán cigars are jointly blended by Jose Pepin Garcia and Pete Johnson of Tatuaje. This blending team has made some exceptional cigars, including the Tatuaje, Cabaiguan, La Riqueza, and El Triunfador brands.

I first went to my humidor to look for my box of Cabaiguan's and retrieved a stick from the bottom of the box. While I was at it, I took a giant whiff and was rewarded with a wonderful aroma of hay and roasted nuts.

The wrapper on this stick is a golden, almost yellow, brown with some small to medium-sized veins and a splotch or two. The veins are light against the backdrop of the wrapper, giving it a tortoise-shell appearance. This Connecticut shade wrapper is grown in Ecuador and sports a pleasant aroma of alfalfa and roasted nuts. Throughout this review cycle I have noted that the wrappers are fairly fragile on these cigars and the wrapper leaf will often split.

After clipping and lighting I noted the flavors of sweet alfalfa and roasted nuts. This has been a consistent feature of this cigar, it starts out with a flood of sweet-spice. There was also an aromatic and toasty cedar spice, along with some black licorice and pepper on the retrohale.

At over two years of age, this cigar had a stellar performance. The draw exhibited just the right amount of resistance and the burn line was meandering, but basically even. The medium gray ash had the texture of plaster, which reminds me that the ash held to the end of the cigar like plaster sticks to walls.

Just when I was beginning to think I liked these cigars better when they were fresh, I get this experience... I am impressed with how balanced this cigar is smoking right now. There seems to be a perfect equilibrium between the initial flavors on the palate, the flavors, nuances and aromas during the retrohale, and the lingering sweet woody finish. In the final third, this cigar also showed some light pepper spice on the tongue.

These sticks are tasting great right now and they will obviously age successfully during the first two years. Beyond that is a mystery, but I am going to go out on a limb and say these will continue to smoke well over the first 3-5 years.

Overall, this is a medium-bodied smoke with balanced flavors and intriguing complexity. I highly recommend this cigar to all levels of cigar smokers.

AGING POTENTIAL SCORE: B = this cigar should age well over the first 5 years and is likely to develop further complexity and nuances

~Doc