Joya De Nicaragua Anthony Casas 2012

So today I have another special review for everyone! If you remember back in last June, tony posted about his Cigar Safari trip with Drew Estate down to Nicaragua. You can read all about it here, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. There’s some pretty interesting reading there and some awesome pictures too!

Well I still happened to have one of the blends he put together for that trip while at the Joya de Nicaragua factory and I’m putting on the chopping block for today’s review! Tony has another Drew Estate trip coming up tomorrow so I figured that would be an excellent segway. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for a full report once he gets back.

There’s not much else to report here, Tony’s posts above give a great explanation of the factory and the process they followed to put these blends together. The wrapper on this guy is the same as the Joya De Nicaragua Dark Corojo (Of course Tony would go for the most powerful wrapper in the house! lol). As for the rest of the leaves, I don’t have the details but we know the cigar is a 100% Nicaraguan Puro, Tony may add some more details about this later on.

So without further adieu, let’s dive in to see what this special and SUPER rare limited edition cigar has in store for me…

Cigar: Joya de Nicaragua Anthony Casas LE 2012
Drink: Coffee
Vitola: Corona Gordo (5.75 x 46)
Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nigaraguan
Price: Priceless!
Burn Time: 1.5 hours

Construction:
• The top of the cigar is finish with a nice and clean double cap
• At the bottom, we have a well packed foot with just a small hole near the middle
• The wrapper is seriously toothy and has some decent medium sized veins
• Cut was easy and I made it very small but still ended up with a perfectly drawing cigar
• From cap to foot, the whole cigar was quite firm with just a bit of give when I squeezed it

Burn:
• Toasting was even, easy and pretty fast leaving me with a nicely glowing foot
• It seemed that right off the bat the wrapper stopped burning and the cigar started tunneling a bit, I decided to give it a quick touch-up to help it along for now
• After my little correction we look to be off to a good start as the cigar starts to burn razor sharp
• A few more touchups were needed near the halfway mark as the burn started to go a little slanted
• Touchups continue through the rest of the cigar, and they are really affecting the flavors
• For a corona vitola, this cigar is burning super slow

Smoke & Ash:
• A good amount of smoke is coming from each easy draw, it’s not super dense but I’d say just about right
• So far the ash is looking to be a nice light grey color with some darker accents
• The resting smoke is pretty prominent and steady, pumping out a nice campfire aroma
• First ash tapped off around 3/4 of an inch, it was starting to look wobbly but still seemed clean and even
• The next couple of ashes were about the same length but they seem to be getting a little more flaky, possibly because of the touch-ups I’ve needed to do
• The cigar continues to pump out a ton of smoke right down to the end

Tasting Notes:
• Wrapper aroma is giving off a sort of sweet cedar aroma to it
• From the foot , I’m getting more of that nice sweet cedar with a touch of cocoa
• Pre-light draw gave me an interesting burst of cinnamon flavors that was very tasty and unexpected
• Initial draws bring more of that sweet cedar and a touch of the cinnamon notes, very nice
• Before evening burning through the first inch I’m getting a bunch of spice starting to kick in, lots of pepper here now
• A bit of dryness on the back of my throat as I pass the first 3rd here
• The burn started to get a little wild around the half-way mark so the cigar has needed a few touchups here and there which has affected the flavor quite a bit
• Retrohale definitely has some bite to it and a dry finish
• Body has been mostly in the medium range but it’s definitely picking up a bit in the last half
• In the last half, i’m left with mostly a dry spice type of flavor and some burnt notes due to the touchups i’ve been doing
• Not much change up in flavors to the end but the burnt notes have continued due to the touch ups

Final Thoughts:
The pre-light aromas and the first half of this cigar were really quite tasty and exciting. Unfortunately they didn’t last the whole way through but overall it was quite a nice experience, especially with that cinnamon burst at the beginning. Tony is definitely well on his way to becoming a world class torecdor! Will be exciting to see what he comes up with on his next venture.

Pairings:
Just plain coffee today, I lit this one up a bit earlier in the day so the Scotch and Port bottles just were not appealing quite yet. I know it’s 5 o’clock somewhere but I’ll wait till my own timezone hits 5 today! 😉 The coffee did make for an excellent pairing though, especially with the cinnamon notes at the beginning. With the build up in spices and body, I would have really liked to have a sweeter pairing at that point. But coffee really is an awesome all-around pairing to have with a nice cigar.