El Cobre Churchill

Today's review is of the El Cobre Churchill. This is a private label cigar made by Oliva for a Empire Cigars in Raleigh, North Carolina. Matt from Matt's Cigar Journal sent me a few of these to try. I don't really know a lot about this particular cigar, but since its from Oliva, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is a Nicaraguan Puro.

Visually, this is a rough looking cigar. The wrapper is very nice and oily, with a dark, mottled color with a slightly reddish hue to it. The wrapper also has a rough feel to it. Construction wise this is a well made cigar with no soft spots or any other construction problems from a visual inspection. The draw is pretty much perfect and shows a very earthy flavor on the predraw.

This is one of those cigars that delivers loads of flavor right from the first draw. This is a very earthy, leathery cigar with plenty of black coffee flavors mixed in. After getting a little further into this cigar, the same flavors remain pretty consistent. This is a very rich, dark cigar. The room aroma is very strong, but not unpleasant. That being said, if you were smoking this around someone who isn't very tolerant of cigars, this is one that would get you plenty of dirty looks because of the strong aroma. The burn was starting to get a little ragged, but after a quick touch up with my torch, it has stayed pretty even. This is a solid full bodied cigar, but not too strong.

Overall, the El Cobre was a very tasty cigar. If you enjoy strait forward full bodied cigars, then this is definitely one to try. This isn't an overly complex cigar, but the flavors presented are far from boring. The heavy earth and coffee flavors are very tasty. Here is the real kicker about this cigar though, this churchill sells for $4.75! At that price, I am really happy with what it brings to the table. After smoking a few of these, I would expect to pay at least 6-7 bucks for these. For the price they go for, they are quite the bargain. There aren't many cigars for under $5 that will perform as well as this one.

Cain Maduro Torpedo

I previously reviewed the Cain Habano torpedo, and todays review is of the Maduro Torpedo. This is the same size as the Habano, a 6x54. The Maduro wrapper on this cigar is very dark and nice and oily. The cigar feels very firm in hand, and the white band at the foot creates a nice visual of contrasting colors with the wrapper. I am not going to go into detail about the blend, as I already did that in spades with the Cain Habano review.

I had to cut a little more off than i prefer on a torpedo because the head was cracked from shipping. The predraw flavors are very similar to the Habano, with plenty of leather and earth, but with a slightly sweeter edge to it. Once lit, this cigar starts off nice and smooth with a sweeter flavor profile than the Habano. There are some definite semi-sweet chocolate flavors, mixed with a woodiness at the core of this smoke. Maduro wrappers tend to lend that rich, sweet characteristic to cigars in my opinion. (this isn't always the case, it depends on the blend they are wrapped around and how that flavor plays with the other leaf) There is a little bit of spice on the finish, along with a leathery and earthy flavor. The burn is slightly uneven, but a few passes of the torch fixed it right up.

After the first inch or so, this cigar settles down to a pretty typical maduro flavor, and is a solid full bodied smoke. To be honest, the flavor of this cigar is a little boring to me at this point. This is definitely not a very complex cigar, and I have already come to the conclusion that I prefer the Habano if I am going to smoke a Cain. These are really well constructed cigars though and have a very strong ash that holds on for well over an inch. This is one of those cigars I kind of wish I had smoked outside, the smoke is very heavy and a little on the acrid side.

If you like full bodied cigars and maduro wrappers, then you might like this one. Compared to the Habano, this cigar fell short in the flavor department, and wasn't as full bodied either. To be perfectly honest, this cigar didn't really do much for me. The Habano was a much better cigar as far as my palate goes. The flavor was on the one dimensional side with a typical maduro flavor, nothing special. The habano wasn't the most complex cigar, but it had more going for it than this one. The first inch of this cigar was promising, but after that it didn't really go anywhere. I may be a little bias though, as I definitely prefer a habano wrapper to maduros. Ill pass on this cigar in the future.

Here is a side by shot of both the Habano and Maduro to really show the difference in wrappers: