Cigar Review: Sorullos by Serious Cigars

Vitola: Torpedo-ish
Size: 6″ x 50 ring gauge
Price $4.95
Obtained From Serious Cigars as a review sample

Background

Dave and I were contacted by someone working with Serious Cigars in Houston to see if we’d be interested in reviewing their new house blend.  As always ones to try new things we both said yes.  Dave’s review will be up in the next week or so.  According to the letter I received with the cigars Ron (the owner of Serious) was walking through a factory in Nicaragua and saw a roller make a cigar without a mold, then light it up.  It intrigued him and he asked to try one and liked it so much he asked to have them made for his store.  The cigar is made with Nicaraguan fillers and binder with a Habano Maduro wrapper.  They only come in one size, they call it torpedo-ish, but I’d call it toro-ish.  This was the first of these cigars I smoked.

Prelight

This definitely looks like a roughly made cigar.  I’m not necessarily saying that in a bad way.  Without the aid of a mold the cigar won’t be as uniform but that isn’t all bad.  I’ll beat the graphic designer (Dave) to the punch and say that the band is a bit incongruous with the rest of the cigar.  The cigar is rough and bumpy and the band has a marble like background surrounded by silver foil with the name of the cigar in a nice script.  They just don’t go together to me.  The wrapper is a nice even dark chocolate brown with a good amount of tooth and oils to it.  There is a good amount of binder and filler sticking out beyond the bottom of the wrapper.  The wrapper gave off a bit of leather with barnyard coming from the foot.  When I gave it a squeeze there was a bit of give and a small soft spot above the wrapper.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of cocoa powder and maple with a good draw.

Flavor

The cigar starts off with a sugary sweetness, cinnamon, leather and red pepper spice.  When the wrapper started to burn the flavors of coffee, wood and hints of anise were noticeable.  The cigar started off in the medium range.  As I moved into the second third the flavors of coffee, wood, anise, cocoa, leather and earth were more prevalent.  The spice had toned down but did not go completely away.  Towards the end of the second third I noted some cinnamon and salt flavors on the finish.  The strength built a bit but didn’t really get out of the upper end of medium.  Once I moved into the final third the spice did start to come back a bit but it wasn’t as strong as the first third.  The flavors I noted in the final third were of coffee, earth, leather, and cinnamon with a sweet, salty, creamy finish.  The cigar built in strength a bit as well and got into the medium-full range.

Construction

Overall the construction was great.  The cigar drew perfectly and I got a lot of smoke out of it.  I was worried because it was rolled without a mold that the burn line would be horrible, but that wasn’t the case.  While it wasn’t razor straight it was pretty good and I didn’t need to correct it once.

Value

This is a great value at only $5.

Conclusions

Overall I really enjoyed this cigar.  Yeah it wasn’t as refined as other cigars costing more, but that is ok.  It was a bit of a nice change from the normal stuff.  I did notice that this cigar did have a lot of the classic maduro flavors without a lot of strength.  I didn’t experience a nicotine hit from it at all, so only those really sensitive would have a problem smoking it.  With the very reasonable price and pleasant flavors I can definitely recommend giving this cigar a try.  If you’d like to purchase some you can get them here.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10