E.P. Carrillo Essence Sumatra

E.P. Carrillo is one of those brands that I feel like I don’t visit as often as I should. Every time I smoke one of his blends I think to myself “I need to have more”. This week I take a look at their new Sumatra.

The Good Stuff:

Releasing this year the E.P. Carrillo Sumatra at this year’s PCA trade show in Las Vegas, the E.P. Carrillo team announced plans to release six blends over the next 2 years that utilize different wrappers. The company is calling this the “Essence” series. The Sumatra is the first one we’ll be looking at from this group. The blend starts out with an Ecuadorian Sumtran wrapper over a dual Nicaraguan and Honduran binder and fillers from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The cigar is offered in three sizes: Robusto (5 x 50), Toro (6 x 52), and Gordo (6 x 60). The blend comes packaged in boxes of 24 running between $9.25 and $10.75 a stick.

• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
• Binder: Nicaraguan and Honduran
• Filler: Nicaraguan and Dominican Republic
• Body: Medium/Full
• Strength: Medium
• Price: $10

Prelight:

The E.P. Carrillo Sumatra starts out with a very deep, dark brown wrapper with a reddish hue to it. The wrapper’s texture is very toothy and dry while it showcases a few larger veins running through the cigar’s body. The wrapper is laid nicely on itself leading up to the cigar’s round double-wrapped cap. The cigar is completed by a large gold, black, and red band with orange and brown accents, the E.P Carrillo Crest and the word “Sumatra” embossed across the front. There is also a small black and gold elegant foot band with the company’s crest.

The wrapper on the E.P. Carrillo Sumatra gives off a ton of sweet and spice aromas with a bit of musk while the foot of the cigar is mostly grainy and earthy with lots of natural tobacco. The cold draw produces notes of sweet raisin, chocolate, and earthiness.

First Third:

The E.P. Carrillo Sumatra starts out with a very sharp, quick black pepper punch which fades almost instantly allowing the cigar to release notes of sweet raisin, dark chocolate, musk and woodsy earthiness. It’s a great mixture of flavors and the sweetness really hits the spot. The draw is perfect. Each puff kicks out a ton of thick, gray smoke which dissipates almost instantly while the cigar releases almost no stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burn line is pretty wavy leaving behind a trail of lightly compacted medium gray ash which fell into my ashtray about an inch in.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the E.P. Carrillo Sumatra and the sweet raisin and deep woodsiness completely own the flavor profile at this point. There are some lighter notes of dark chococaly and berry with a really faint root beer finish. The retrohale brings out more of the wood and I prefer the balance in the standard smoke so I don’t find myself doing it too often. The burn line has now completely corrected itself without any help from my torch while I close out the second third with no signs of nicotine.

Finish:

Into the final third of the E.P. Carrillo and while the flavor profile remained the same the sweet raisin on woodsy flavors have swapped places and the cigar finishes incredibly woodsy and musky with some light raisin and sweetness and some great piney flavors on the aftertaste. The cigar burned wild off and on at times but I never once had to touch up or relight my cigar so no points taken there. I finishing out with only a minor nicotine kick after an hour and a half smoking time.

Overview:

Again, anytime I smoke anything from E.P. Carrillo I wonder why I don’t smoke more. The Sumatra is a great example of the tobacco. The cigar is flavorful, but not overpowering. It’s not too complex which makes it the ideal cigar for the everyday smoker. The price point presses that point by being very affordable and like all E.P. Carrillo cigars will be widely available.