Room 101 Daruma

By Tony Casas | October 30, 2023

Woah, we are in freezing temperatures here. Quite the transition from the hottest summer on record, but not complaints here. Before the cold front moved in I found my way out back with the 2023 Room 101 Daruma.

The Good Stuff:

Earlier this year Matt Booth and Room 101 announced the return of one of their more favored lines, the Daruma. While the original release featured an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Brazilian Mata Fina binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Honduras, the 2023 Daruma is nothing like the old blend. In fact, this year’s blend utilizes a full make-up of all Nicaraguan tobaccos. While the specifics are not released, the cigar is being produced at the Oliva factory in Nicaragua. This year’s release comes in a single 6 x 50 toro format, packaged in boxes of 10, running $12.99 a stick with only 2,000 boxes being produced.

• Size: 6 x 50
• Wrapper: Nicaraguan
• Binder: Nicaraguan
• Filler: Nicaraguan:
• Body: Medium/Full
• Strength: Medium
• Price: $12.99

Prelight:

The 2023 Room 101 Daruma is dressed in a beautiful, asian-inspired, gold and black printed paper. Under the paper is a layer of white tissue. Once you remove the dressing you can finally get a good look at the cigar. The wrapper is very dark brown with lots of splotches of scattered red areas. The wrapper feels very hard and dense while the cigar as a whole is extremely heavy and well packed. The are a few smaller veins running through the cigar’s body as well as some nice tobacco webbing in the wrapper leaf. The wrapper carries a good amount of tooth and some mild oils as the cigar’s closed foot leads up to its round, doubled-wrapped cap. The cigar is polished off with a beautiful black and gold Daruma crest on the main band and the added secondary gold band with the phrase “LMT ASF” printed across the front.

The wrapper on the Daruma gives off lots of sweetness and sandalwood aromas while teh foot of the cigar is mostly the same (due to the closed foot) with just a slight bit of earthiness. The cap took a bit of effort to clip using my Xikar XO double bladed cutter due to the thickness of the wrapper leaf. The cold draw produces a whole lot of milk chocolate flavors over natural tobacco.

First Third:

The Room 101 Daruma starts out with a huge burst of black pepper which quickly fades allowing the cigar to release a ton of dark chocolate flavors over heavy pecan and nutmeg with some light espresso hidden underneath. The draw is perfect. Each little puff kicks out a great a mount of thick, gray smoke which dissipated very quickly while the cigar doesn’t release a whole lot of stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burnline is slightly wavy, but not concerning as it produces some mildly compacted light gray ash which held on for an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Room 101 Daruma the pecan and dark chocolate completely own the flavor profile backed by light cedar and dry cinnamon. The retrohale brings out some great sweetness and nutmeg while the standard experience is overall a dry mixture of flavors. The burnline has really cleaned itself up at this point by itself and I close out the second third with absolutely no nicotine kick.

Finish:

Wow, now this is where an already great cigar starts to really shine. Into the final third of the Room 101 Daruma the cigar loads on more pecan flavor over bold dark chocolate and cinnamon. Great notes of cedar and gingerbread start to creep into the mix as well as an awesome sweetness which just carries the final profile home. It took me about an hour and forty five minutes to smoke the Daruma down to the nub and by the end, I didn’t want to put it down. I experienced no harshness, no extended heat, no burn issues, and never once had to touch-up or relight the cigar. It left me only with a mild little nicotine twang.

Overeview:

This is a huge departure from the Room 101 Daruma of the past, and I don’t mind that at all, especially with this incredible flavor profile. The cigar produces a complex mixture of flavors that really speak to my personal palate. The construction is on point, and the price is a bit high, but completely acceptable given how much I enjoyed this cigar. I have gone back to this cigar a few times now and each time I surprise myself by liking it more and more. It starts out slow, but ends with a bang. This is a stick that I will definitely keep a few on hand as it’s a very limited run.