Cigar Review: Kuuts LLC Placeres Reserva

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

Robusto, 5” x 50 ring gauge / ~$7,MSRP

Today I will be look at a company that while not strangers to the cigar business, are new to the North American Market. They have been in the cigar market in Europe and most of the rest of the world for 15 years. Along with their new factory in Danli, Nicaragua they hope to increase their production and distribution. Dave and I were approached and asked if we would be interested in reviewing their cigars. Naturally we were and they graciously send us each two samples of each of the three blends that they will be starting to distribute in the US. The first one of these I will be reviewing is the Placeres Reserva. This cigar is comprised of Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers, a Costa Rican binder, and a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper. They are saying it is medium to full in strength. It comes in five box pressed sizes. I smoked one of these prior to this review.

The wrapper on this sample was a chestnut brown with a hint of darker mottling to it. The cigar felt velvety to the touch and there were a slight amount of oils to the wrapper. While in the the picture it looks more pronounced than it was the cigar was slightly trompeta shaped and the cap was a little off center. When I gave it a squeeze I didn’t detect any soft spots and it was fairly firm. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got the strong aroma of leather with heavy barnyard from the foot. After clipping and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of cinnamon and leather with a tight draw.

Trying to get it going took a little doing, as someone reminded me of the term recently, as it had a milkshake like draw. There was very little smoke for the amount I was puffing on it. Taking the bleeder tool on my MTX and poking a couple holes in the filler helped but it still required a lot of work. I did note some flavors of cinnamon and wood with a sweet finish but because I could get much smoke they were fairly faint.

By the time I got into the second third I needed to re-cut it as I tend to salivate and moisten the head of the cigar on cigars with tight draws. Doing this did help out the draw a bit. The burn was wavy but didn’t require a re-application of fire. At the beginning of this third I started to get a lot more spice from the cigar. The other flavors stayed the same from the previous third. I would classify this cigar at the upper end of medium in regards to strength. The spice did mellow a bit by the end of this third.

As I got into the final third the draw had opened up a bit more. However it wasn’t near what I like. I didn’t really get much flavor out of it since the spice had ramped back up and was the main flavor. To me this cigar didn’t climb out of the upper end of medium range.

With some pretty major construction issues on both of the samples I smoked I don’t feel I was really able to get a good read on the flavors of the cigar. I did talk with a couple other people and they didn’t have the construction issues I had so my cigars were probably a fluke. With the reasonable price of the cigar, and no bad flavors, I would give this cigar another try if I found it for sale.

Body: 6/10

Strength: 7/10

Complexity: 5/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 2/2

Construction: 1/2

Flavor: 3/5

Value: 1/1

Total: 7/10