Cohiba Exquisitos

Description

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Cohiba Exquisitos Review
I was behind the wheel of a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray — you know, with the split rear window that makes seeing what’s behind you akin to squinting through two pillows. The car smelled of high-octane gasoline, ancient floor mats and the ghosts of better decisions. It wasn’t even my car, it was some guy’s car he no longer needed, and I was just sitting there in it as the rain smeared his windshield with a gray industrial blur. I felt heavy.

Product Specifications

Not the heavy feeling you get after a big meal but that other, dirtier kind of tired in your bones: You suddenly realize you’ve spent five years doing exactly what everybody said to do — and have nothing to show for it except a clean bill of health and a lingering sense of boredom. Five years. It had been that long since I’d gotten my hands on a cigar. I had stopped because I thought that was what I had to do in order to grow up, or perhaps it was because someone I loved asked me to stop, or maybe just because I forgot how to drink in the quiet moments.

But when I sat in that leather bucket seat, hearing the ticking of the analog clock perched on the dash, no one was saying a damn thing. I opened the glove box —I hadn’t anticipated anything being inside it— and swept my fingers against a small, cedar-lined leather pouch. I knew what was in it before I pulled it out. It was just one, thin stick that I’d stashed away for a “special occasion” that never happened.

Until now. That smoke? The
Cohiba Exquisitos
. It appeared small, almost feeble, next to that American muscle car, but I knew better.

I’ve always known better. The Specs
Attribute
Details
Factory Name
Seoane
Vitola de Galera
Petit Corona / Seoane
Wrapper/Binder/Filler
Cuba (Triple Fermented)
First Impressions & Construction
I gotta say, there’s something very personal about a 33 ring gauge cigar.

This is no big, thumb-sized stick that tugs on your pocket. It’s discreet. The Exquisitos I held in my hand was firmly, but a little springy to the touch — indication that those rollers at El Laguito really had this whole long filler thing down pat. The wrapper was a gorgeous, slightly oily Colorado with a few fine veins that seemed to serve as a roadmap of the Vuelta Abajo region.

I didn’t have anything exclusive like a cutter. I used a little pocketknife I carry for emergencies, cutting just the tiniest bit off of the cap. The pre-light draw was an epiphany. It tasted like sweet hay and older library books, even after spending God-knows-how-long in a glovebox.

The draw was a touch tight — which is to be expected in these thinner vitolas — but it wasn’t plugged. It seemed to be withholding, waiting for the fire to awaken it. I lit a match and burned off the sulfur and toasted the foot. The smell that met me was all nostalgia.

It wasn’t just tobacco, it was the scent of the 1980s, of diplomatic meetings I’d only read about in days before my birth and all that rarefied air y’all’s mate Cohiba has carried since they started making these up for Fidel around ‘66. This particular vitola, the Seoane, was tacked onto the Linea Clasica in ’89 and it’s got that old-school Cuban DNA throughout. The First Third: The Reawakening
The initial few puffs were like catching up with an old friend who doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence with frivolous chatter.

It began with a very distinct note of dryish cedar. It was supported by this amazing, subtle honey sweetness—black honey to be exact. I’ve heard people mention “honey on the nose” with Cohibas, and back in the day I thought that was just marketing. But sitting in that Corvette, the honey was authentic.

It was thick and coated the back of my throat while counteracting a faint white pepper spice that tingled at the end of my tongue. The smoke production was actually quite good for a cigar this thin. It was not a chimney, but it had created its own thin, blue-white wisp that fluttered in the car’s humid air. Half an inch in, the leather reappeared.

Not the “new car” leather smell of the Corvette, either, but some deeper, more worn-in aroma. It was a solid start. I felt the tightness in my shoulders begin to loosen for the first time in five years. Do you ever have one of those moments where something just, well clicks?

That was this third. The Second Third – The Cream & The Nut
As I situated myself at the midpoint of the stick, the flavor profile changed gears – way smoother than that original synchro-mesh in the Sting Ray’s gearbox.

The pepper mellowed out, and the smoke texture was almost creamy. And this is where that third Cohiba fermentation process, those long aging times the company’s famous for comes into play. They take the seco and ligero leaves, performing an additional round of fermentation on them in barrels. I have no idea why this is, and you know what, I don’t care.

All’s I know is that it smooths the smoke out like silk. The predominant flavor here was something I’d classify as “acceptable nougat. It was nutty and sweet and rich. There was a hint of coffee creeping in as well—not in the bitter espresso range but more like that of a well-made café au lait.

The force was most definitely with them, though. The Exquisitos is no sissy for a little cigar. It’s described as medium to full, and halfway through, it was in my chest. It was the “good” kind of heavy, a hard-won sensation that matched the car’s fiberglass body and the melancholic vibe of rain drumming down on those panels.

The ash was a light gray, hanging on for about three-quarters of an inch before I tapped it into the car’s tiny ashtray. The burn was almost perfect- I didn’t need to do any touch ups! I have to say, for a handmade item of this size, that’s pretty impressive. Thinner cigars can be among the most challenging to roll properly, but this one was a study in beautiful construction.

The Last Third: Some of the “Bad”
In the home stretch, the Exquisitos decided to bare its teeth.

The honey sweetness and nougat subsided, allowing earthy, more “darker” flavors to come through. I began to pick up some hits of cocoa—unsweetened, raw cocoa—and an even more significant black pepper on the retrohale. The cedar remained but moved more toward a toasted oak note. It got hot toward the end, but that’s to be expected with a 33 ring gauge.

You have to slow down. Puff on this thing like you’re trying to extinguish a blaze, and it’ll go bitter on you. I was slow, a minute or two between pulls. The leather’s returned with a vengeance and the very end of the cigar brings me my final little bit of that sweet black honeyfinish before it starts burning too hot to hold anymore.

I smoked that sucker all the way down to my fingertips — they were getting scorched. I didn’t want it to end. It had been 20, maybe 25 minutes of absolute, undistracted work. In that time, the rain had lessened to a drizzle — and the darkness in my head had lightened just enough t

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