When I started smoking Perdomo wasn’t available on the Dutch market, but I read about the brand a lot on Facebook, Club Stogie and later Cigar Asylum. Then I got bombed a few times so I had my chance to smoke a few Perdomo cigars but the brand didn’t impress me much and even after my first trip to the USA, back in 2009, where I tried a bunch of other Perdomo cigars it was just an okay brand for me. But then I smoked the Lot 23 maduro and I liked it a lot, and in my memory it is the best Perdomo cigar that I have smoked. Now in the most recent years Perdomo became available here, the company I used to work for distributed them so I tried several new Perdomo lines and even though its been a long time since I smoked that Perdomo Lot 23 Maduro, in my mind it’s still a great cigar. I wonder if I still like it so much, so I grabbed one for a review.
Now, what I remember from the conversation I had with Nick Perdomo about this cigar at Intertabac years ago, is that all the tobacco comes from a specific piece of one of his fields, lot 23, and the line started as an experiment. I guess the experiment was a success since the line had been available on the market for years and with three different wrappers, a Connecticut Shade, a Sun Grown (or Habano as its called in the USA) and this maduro wrapper and in an array of sizes. I picked the last 5×50 robusto I had in my stash, I still have a toro that I may or may not review in the future. As all the tobacco comes from Lot 23, which is on a farm in Nicaragua this is automatically a Nicaraguan puro.
In the cellophane and with my humidor lights the cigar didn’t look at that dark but once I get it out of the cellophane and in good light I notice how dark and oily the wrapper is, it’s almost black. It has two medium thick veins on the back of the cigar and a leathery feel to it. The construction is great with a neatly placed triple cap. The ring is about an inch in height, it’s pretty simple with a thick brown ring at the top and bottom and beige in between. On the top brown line it says Perdomo in beige letters, the bottom says Esteli, Nicaragua. On the beige there is a simple black drawing of a tobacco barn and a few palm trees. The paper is quite thick and has some embossing. The aroma is medium strong and all I can say is barnyard.
I punched the cigar, the cold draw is great. I taste a mild pepper with some cocoa. Right after carefully lighting the cigar with my Ronson varaflame I taste Cuban coffee, strong yet sweet. After a quarter of an inch i taste caramel with oak. After half an inch chocolate shows up too, dark chocolate. After a third I taste caramel, some citrus, wood and some toasted bread. Halfway I taste wood, toast and a little black pepper. Slowly the wood gets stronger with spices like nutmeg and a little cumin. A little later, but still in the second part, I start to taste nuts, walnut and hazelnut to be more precise. The final third starts with the nuts, cedar and a little bit of pepper. A few puffs later I taste peanuts with a little salt and more pepper.
The ash is almost white with darker smears, it’s firm too. The smoke is white, thick, full and it makes my air purifier work at full speed. The draw is flawless but all Perdomo cigars undergo a draw test before the wrapper is applied so that’s no surprise. The burn is pretty straight. This medium to full bodied cigar is very flavorful. The cigar has a lot of evolution. The smoke time is an hour and forty five minutes.
Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, this is a medium priced cigar yet very flavorful and good.
Score: 92
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