Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco

By Tony Casas | March 12, 2024

I wanted to get this review out before I left town for a bit on a much needed vacation. This week I spend some time with the Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco, a cigar that’s been on my list since its release and I am finally getting to review it.

The Good Stuff:

Joya de Nicaragua’s Cinco de Cinco is the newest offering from the company released to celebrate the company’s 55th anniversary. This release joins the “Obras Maestras” collection which is a collection that focuses on only the best of the best cigars produced at the factory. The other two blends currently in the series are the Numero Uno which was released in 2018 and the Dos Cientos which came out in 2021.

The Cinco de Cinco blend features an “ultra vintage” Mexican San Andres wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The cigar is offered in five soft-box press sizes: Robusto (5 x 50), Robusto Gordo 5 1/2 x 54), Corona Extra (6 1/4 x 46), Corona Double (7 x 54), and the Toro (6 x 52). Each come packaged in boxes of 10 ranging between $16 and $21 per cigar. Big thanks goes out to the Drew Estate team for sending a handful of these our way for review.

• Size: 6 1/4 x 46
• Wrapper: Mexican San Andres
• Binder: Nicaraguan
• Filler: Nicaraguan
• Body: Full
• Strength: Full
• Price: $16

Prelight:

The Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco starts out with an extremely dark brown, extremely consistent wrapper. The wrapper’s texture is very gritty and toothy with a good amount of oils coating it. The wrapper itself feels very thick and dense while the entire cigar is hard and tightly compacted which isn’t too common with soft box press formats. There are only a very small amounts of veins in the cigar’s wrapper leading form the cigar’s foot up to it’s round, double-wrapped cap. The cigar is polished off with a beautiful emerald green band with the Cinco de Cinco crest on the front and a dark green “Obras Maestras” logo on the back.

The wrapper on the Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco gives off mostly strong tobacco and raw cocoa aromas while the foot of the cigar carries some extremely spicy scents over mostly wood. The cap took a bit of convincing to cut due to its thickness. The cold draw produces mostly notes of dark chocolate and plum over natural tobacco.

First Third:

The Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco starts off with a bang as it leads with loads of cayenne pepper which really did a number on my tongue at first. After a bit the pepper calms down and the cigar leaves you with rich, dark cocoa flavors over bold raisin, spice and oak with great natural tobacco and dirt flavors. I know dirt doesn’t sound appealing, however in cigars with more earthy flavors that one blends in really well. And maybe it’s not the best description of the flavor however it’s what I closely relate it to. Anyways, the draw is perfect and each puff kicks out MASSIVE clouds of thick, white smoke which really stick around for a while as the cigar releases a ton of stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burn line has a bunch of smaller waves, but nothing too concerning while it’s thin burnline leaves behind a trail of tightly compacted white and dark gray ash which held on for an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco and the profile remains similar, however the cocoa has transformed more into a dark chocolate and now leads the charge along with bold pecan flavors. There is still a good amount of oak and earthiness. Overall the flavor profile is extremely dry, earthy, and tasty. The retrohale brings out a ton of spice, even more than I enjoy so I don’t find myself going back to that. The cigar is still burning perfectly and I close out the second third with a decent little nicotine kick already which is to be expected with any Joya de Nicaragua cigar.

Finish:

The Joya de Nicaragua Cinco de Cinco finishes strong with bold pecan and oak while the dark chocolate it still in the mix, but takes a back seat. There is still a good amount of musky earthiness in there too. It took me almost 2 hours to smoke this very slow-burning cigar down to the nub. The body was in the full arena from start to finish while the strength started out medium/full before ramping up and leaving me with a pretty heft nicotine kick. I experienced no harshness nor extended heat. While the cigar did burn slightly wavy I never once had to touch up or relight the cigar.

Overview:

Any new release form Joya de Nicaragua makes my heart happy. I have been a long-time fan of the brand and I really appreciate how they are a company that sticks to their roots in each of their blends. They don’t have to release a ton of new blends each year, they just need to keep making high quality cigars with their current profiles. The Cinco de Cinco is all the things we love about the company wrapped up into a great cigar. Amazing flavor profile, flawless performance and construction, consistent, and bold. I don’t think you can ask for more. Toss on the fact that this will be a regular production line and it quickly becomes a box worthy purchase which I intend to keep around in my daily rotation.