One of the things I like about cigars is that like whisky each brand, line, and size of cigar has a unique flavour, for me its the fun of trying new sticks, and parings, that makes smoking cigars enjoyable. And you are always on the lookout hoping to find one that is amazing.
So in this spirit I took a punt on this cigar, this is the first Chinchalero cigar I have smoked, I was hoping it would be a good little stick. As its small and pretty cheap, it might have posibilities as a cheap quick winter smoke.
Appearance 6.5/10
This is a pretty average looking cigar, it has a very light wraper, the cap construction was not bad considering the size of the cigar (it must be tricky constructing a cap on such a small cigar).
The band on this cigar is pretty basic but I guess you should not expect much considering the price.
Construction & Draw 5.5/10
This wrapper on this cigar is pretty well constructed, however you do start to notice problems when you slightly squeeze the stick, at some points is very soft, and other very hard, its clear that the packing of the toabcco in this cigar is not very even.
The uneven packing become apparent when you start to smoke this cigar, the draw was extremely tight, not quite plugged, but it was clear that the tightly packed tobacco was restricting flow.
The burn line on this cigar was pretty eratic, probably due to having to draw very strongly to get any flavour.
Flavour 5.0/10
When I could get enough of a draw to get some flavour, I could detect some woody notes which we okay, the rest of the flavour was just tobbaco. I would say this is a medium strength cigar, but there was not much richness to the flavour.
The flavour profile did not change for the first half of the cigar, unfortunatly, probably due to having to draw so hard on the stick, just after half way the flavour got really bitter and dry. At this point I stopped smoking this cigar and gave up on it, I have to say it did leave an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and I needed a drink as my mouth was very dry (if you have ever eaten cream crackers with no butter you will know what I mean).
Value 6.0/10
Okay these are only around 2.30 GBP each, so for the UK this is extremely cheap, because of this I have to give a reasonable rating for value. However the construction and final flavour prevent this getting a higher value rating.
Summary 5.5/10
This is not a stick that will be going in my humidor, perhaps I just got a bad cigar, but the draw was so tight, the flavours flat, and the final taste was not very pleasant.
I notice that this cigar does get some good reviews on some merchants sites, so perhaps I did get a bad cigar, but I dont think I will bother trying another to check.
UK Cigarnewbie 