CAO Italia Positano Review

Wrapper: Honduran

Filler: Italian, Nicaraguan, and Peruvian

Price: $6.00

I was given three of these about 2 months ago and prior to that I had never smoked one. So last month I smoked one of them and thought it was just ok. Then over this past weekend I smoked another and it was exponentially better that the first one. So after work today I figured I would smoke the last one and write up this review.

The wrapper looks very good. It is chocolate brown and very oily. There is a wonderful shine to this wrapper. There were a couple flaws to these sticks though. There were a few thick veins that I was afraid of, and while examining the stick, I found a couple soft spots on one side of the stick. The cigar itself smells very sweet like chocolate though.

This cigar was very sweet off of the start. There was a strong coffee flavor as soon as it was lit. To go along with the undeniable coffee flavor, was an even more delicious chocolate flavor. These two flavors were so strong and delicious, I wished they would have stayed the whole stick. About an inch in, the whole flavor changed. Spice set in and offset all sweetness.

After a few inches, the cigar became very creamy which helped bring back a little bit of the coffee and chocolate flavor. But right around the half way point, this cigar was mainly just full of earthy flavor. It was at this point that the sweetness was almost completely gone. The remainder of the cigar was full of earthy and spicy notes and made this cigar almost bitter.

Now the flavor wasn’t the only thing I didn’t care for about this cigar. The ash was terrible. The ash was about five different shades of gray and very flaky. The burn was never even, and I was forced to fix it three times with my lighter. But these areas were right around where the soft spots were. The draw was very tight for the first half, but eased up as the stick progressed. But, on the bright side, the aroma was great. All the flavors were able to be smelled throughout the thick white smoke.

Now for CAO, I am kind of upset with the inconsistency between the three of these I had. I would recommend these to medium bodied cigar lovers, but for the money, I think there are many other choices out there that are so much better. I give this cigar a measly5 out of 10.

Stay smoking’,

Zack the Stogie Man