Wow, what a smoke.
I picked up a CAO America Potomac today during lunch, with the intention of smoking it on the way home. This was my first mistake; the cigar lasted longer than the drive.
The first thing I noticed about this cigar, other than the pretty Red, White, and Blue artwork, was that it has two shades of wrapper. The entire cigar is wrapped in a dark Maduro, with a lighter band showing in a spiral shape along the length. While pretty, I wasn’t sure how it would taste. So I lit up unsure of how this very pretty cigar would taste.
Wow. Something about the mixed wrapper — the flavor is just different, and it’s good. There’s an almost nutty flavor to it. It’s not as full bodied as it looks, but in a good way. It seems to get a little lighter the further it goes on, but it never quite loses the nutty, almost coffee-but-with-nuts flavor. It’s hard to describe; it’s very, very smooth. The smoke is light and full of that good cigar smell, too. As it burns, of course, there is ash.
The ash was a good, strong ash — I didn’t let it build up, as I was in the car, but what was there didn’t want to fall off on it’s own. I didn’t end up with “ash crumbs” all over my shirt, which happens sometimes when having to forcibly ash a cigar — little bits stick around then snow down on you. But this didn’t happen. The filler was long and strong.
Short little review this time, but the cigar is great. I highly recommend it.