Viaje Summerfest 2010 Review

Wrapper: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Price: ~$10.00

As many of my readers know, I do not have easy access to Viaje cigars. The closes cigar shops that carry them are roughly an hour and a half to two hours away. So when I get my hands on a couple Viaje cigars, I try my best to hold onto them, but sometimes I just can’t wait, which I am sure you understand. Well a few months ago, one of my readers sent me a few different Viaje cigars to try out and review, this is the last one I had left in my humidor.

This cigar features a very nice shaggy foot, and slightly resembles a paintbrush. The wrapper was a nice medium shade of brown with a couple very thin veins that ran through it. The wrapper is also very smooth and the torpedo cap was wrapped perfectly flush. The stick itself was very solid with not a single soft spot throughout. The torpedo cut very clean, and the shaggy foot made this cigar quite easy to light.

Upon lighting up this cigar, I was greeted with a very smooth and earthy start. Once I got passed the shaggy foot, and started burning the binder and wrapper, a little bit of spice came out. There was also a nice woodiness that builds up on the palate very quickly. Just when the woodiness got to be a full flavor, a strong coffee flavor came out. By about an inch and a half of the way in, the spice became very strong, almost overpowering.

Once this cigar got into the second third, there was a very light sweetness that came out. This sweetness was actually very good because it helped to dilute a little bit of the very strong spice. Along with the strong spice, the woodiness picked up a little bit more as well. Once the wood notes picked up, the coffee notes almost completely disappeared.

By halfway the spice bumped up to the strongest it has been in this cigar. The peppery spice overpowers the woodiness completely. I thought the coffee disappeared, but it quickly came back and sat on my palate. Now that the coffee flavor was on my palate, and the spice was on my tongue, the flavor combination was a little odd. It’s not often that I taste strong pepper and coffee together.

The last third of this cigar completely took a turn. The flavor became very creamy and the main flavor notes were wood and coffee. The spice diluted down to just a nice accent. There was also little to no sweetness remaining.

The finish was great. The smoke was very creamy with the spice notes just accenting everything perfectly. The spice remained on the tongue throughout the finish, but it wasn’t as strong as earlier by any means.

The ash on this cigar was a medium gray shade and a little flakey. The one thing that bothered me about this cigar was that the burn was very uneven once it passed the shaggy foot. I had to correct the burn several times. The draw was very easy and helped to produce a very thick white smoke. The aroma was very woody and spicy, as you probably guessed.

Overall I enjoyed the flavors in this cigar. The first four inches or so were fairly consistent with very subtle changes, but once I got into the last third, I thoroughly enjoyed the flavor. I would have rated this cigar higher if the burn pattern was more even, but since I had to correct it a few time, I am going to give this cigar a 7.25 out of 10.

Thanks for reading,

Zack the Stogie Man