Cohiba Robustos (Cuban)

By Tony Casas | April 6, 2020

While the Cohiba Robustos is no stranger to Casas Fumando and we’ve reviewed it a few times, its been years and my palate has changed immensely over that time so I wanted to give it another run and see how things shaped up.

The Good Stuff:

This cigar doesn’t really need a lot of introduction. The Cohiba Robustos tops the list of most purchased Cuban cigars of all time, and rightfully so. It’s always a pleasure to come back to and most Cuban cigar smokers stock these for heavy rotation. The all Cuban blend comes in multiple packages and runs somewhere around $12 a stick. It’s always interesting to see just how much more common Cuban cigars vary in price depending on where you get them.

• Size: 5 x 50
• Wrapper: Cuban
• Binder: Cuban
• Filler: Cuban
• Body: Medium
• Strength: Medium
• Price: ~$12
• Pairing: Great Notion Box of Chocolates (Imperial Stout 11% ABV)

Prelight:

The Cohiba Robustos starts out with an extremely consistent light-brown/yellowish wrapper. The wrapper’s texture is silky smooth with no tooth and a decent amount of oils. The wrapper feels very thin and delicate while the cigar as a whole is pretty heavy and tightly compacted with no soft-spots. There are a few larger veins and lots of natural tobacco webbing scattered throughout the cigar’s body leading up to it’s round, triple-wrapped cap. The cigar is polished off with the updated hologram-infused black, gold, yellow, and white Cohiba band we’ve seen on most of their more recent releases.

The wrapper on the Cohiba Robustos gives off a ton of earthy, cedar aromas while the foot of the cigar is much more dormant with light notes of spice and pine. The cap cut clean and easily using my Xikar XO double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces some nice cedar, cashew, and saltiness.

First Third:

The Cohiba Robustos lit up with ease under my single torch butane torch. The first few puffs greeted me with some light white pepper, cedar and cashew. As the pepper faded a nice mixture of butter and pine began to creep into the flavor profile. The draw was pretty snug for about a quarter of an inch before finally opening up and releasing a good amount of gray smoke which dissipated pretty quickly while the cigar releases only trace amounts of stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burning is very thin and dead even leaving behind a tightly compacted trail of bright gray ash which held on for almost an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Cohiba Robustos and the flavor profile remains the same for the most part. The cedar and cashew still lead the charge with notes of butter, pine, and even a soft honey that I wish was a bit more present. The retrohale really brings the cedar to the forefront of the experience and I find myself doing it quite often. The cigar is burning flawlessly without any help from my torch while I close out the second third with noting in terms of a nicotine kick.

Finish:

The flavor profile has began to ramp up into the final third of the Cohiba Robustos but it never fully pushed the cigar out of the medium-body arena. The cedar and cashew are still going strong while the pine and butter dropped out leaving only some earthiness and leather. I feel the final third of the Cohiba Robusto came so quickly after I lit up the cigar, but it actually took me an hour and a half to take the cigar down to the nub and I experienced no harshness nor extended heat while the cigar left me with only a very minor nicotine kick.

Overview:

Its easy to see why the Cohiba Robustos is such a popular cigar. The construction was flawless, the burn was perfect, the flavor profile was great, the price point isn’t ridiculous and the cigar preformed very well. Its not the most complex cigar, but its the perfect smoke for those times when you are caving something that tastes great and you don’t want to put too much thought into the experience. Its the perfect relaxing on the patio on a spring day after a long week cigar which deserves a spot in my regular every-day rotation.

Pairing:

I decided to go off the beaten path a bit with this pairing. Normally I’d pair this cigar with something dry and mild, but I wanted to see how far we could push the profile with something heavy and sweet so I turned to Great Notion’s Box of Chocolates. The 11% ABV Imperial Stout is brewed at the Great Notion brewery in Portland, Oregon is created using a mixtures of Chocolate, Hazelnuts, and cherry. The beer starts with a ton of sticky chocolate and malt with a very heavy mouthfeel before finishing with vanilla, cocoa, light hazelnut and just an aftertaste of cherry. While these aren’t notes I picked up in the Cohiba Robustos they complemented the profile really well and the sweetness helped push the needle from the dry side to a more overall sweeter experience.