Cigar Review: Old Oaks Maduro

Vitola: Box pressed robusto
Size: 5″ x 54 ring gauge
Price $5.99
Purchased at Old Oaks

Background

Last year my wife and I were driving up the coast to spend a couple days out of town and we decided to meet up with @CitrusWalkCC at one his local hangouts Old Oaks Cigar & Wine Co.  I had stopped in on a couple previous occasions and knew it was a good shop.  They are located right off the 101 so we didn’t need to detour from our travels.  Their humidor, while not the largest, does have a pretty good selection of cigars.  In the center of the humidor is a bunch of bins with all of their house blends in them.  They also sell beer, wine and spirits.  I know they can server wine and beer but don’t know about spirits.  This box pressed maduro caught my eye so I picked a few up.  I don’t know what this cigar is made of as I forgot to ask the owner when I left.  This was the fourth one of these I’ve smoked.

Prelight

The wrapper on this sample was mottled in color with some dark, medium, and golden brown colors mixed in.  In spite of not being in cellophane there was a good amount of oils to the wrapper.  It also exhibited a fair amount of tooth.  The box press was well done, not to sharp or not to round.  When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give and no soft spots.  There wasn’t much aroma from the wrapper with some light chocolate coming from the foot.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of balsa and sweetness with a good draw.

Flavor

This one took a little more flame to get going than the other ones I remember but once it did it got started I noted flavors of chocolate, red pepper, cream and cinnamon.  The cigar was medium bodied to start.  As I moved into the second third the flavors changed slightly to coffee, earth with a hint of anise.  The spice mellowed a bit but didn’t go away.  The strength did build a bit in spite of that to the medium-full range.  Once I got into the final third the flavors were pretty much a combination of the first two; coffee, earth, chocolate, cinnamon and cream, with the spice starting to come back as well.  I did start to get a slight nicotine hit from it as well.

Construction

The cigar had a great draw throughout.  The burn line was slightly wavy but it seemed to me that difficult time lighting it up was the cause because I can’t remember the other ones doing this.

Value

Six bucks for a well made, flavorful cigar is good in my book.

Conclusions

This is definitely one of the best house blend cigars from any of the cigar shops I’ve visited.  I will be picking up more of these on my next trip through.  I would also like to give some of their other blends a try.  I recommend stopping by this lounge if you’re ever in the area and seeing if they have one you like too.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10