Starting off the new year, Dave and I review the Cain. I sure am glad Dave like to write things up. Otherwise it would be a long time between reviews. Here is the latest.


Saturday, January 16, 2010

Randy and I had a number of cigars we were looking forward to trying in 2010. One of those was the Cain Habano. We've had a break in the recent cold spell and headed back out to the Man Shed for a late evening smoke. The following information about this cigar was found on the internet -The Oliva Cain Cigars are a triple-fermented all-ligero cigar that was released in August of 2009. The inspiration for the blend is the motto of "straight ligero". These cigars have a variety of ligero tobaccos from several regions of popular tobacco farms in Esteli, Condega, and the Jalapa Valley in Nicaragua. Making a Straight Ligero cigar requires a unique understanding of the leaf. Ligero comes from the top of the tobacco plant. Its direct exposure to the sun darkens and thickens this leaf. Smaller than leaves lower on the plant, it also enjoys a concentration of nutrients. Habano Seed Ligero is recognized as the most full flavored leaf on a plant.Cain is the creation of Sam Leccia creator of one of our favorite lines of cigars the Nub's. I'm a little intimidated by this cigars as I have heard so much about its strength. We are going to smoke this cigar in the Robusto size (5.70 inches in length with a ring gauge of 50). I picked these up while in Topeka at Churchill's. They ran just over $7. This is more than we typically pay but we have not seen the Cain's in any specials online yet and we really wanted to try them.The Cain Habano is a rather rough looking cigars with a single small understated label on the foot of the cigar. It is not the prettiest cigar I have ever seen but rather it has a masculine appearance. It looks like its going to be strong. The cigar feels firmly packed although a soft spot was detected about half-way down the cigar.After clipping the cigars we test the draw and we are both impressed with it. The cigars light nicely and we are off. After taking about a half dozen draws we find the cigar to be as strong as advertised. It is full flavored with a pronounced bite at the end. Now a lot of cigars start this way the question is will our palates adjust or will this cigar's full flavor, body and bite persist?As we reach the half way point the burn had been very good. The cigar does not hold its ash like a Nub but the burn line has been good and we have had no burn issues. That is until we get to the place where the soft spot was and then both our cigars went out. The cigar has held its strength through the first half of our smoke. It is not bitter but it is strong and the bite has remained for me. Randy has noticed what he called a kind of toasty or roasted flavor. It reminds me of espresso - very strong, bitter but if you like that then also quite enjoyable.We paired our smoke tonight with two drinks. The first was The Tyrconnell Single Malt Irish Whiskey. This is a lovely drink with a floral nose. It starts a little sweet, quickly followed by a warm burn and then a rather dry and crisp finish. We actually tried the Tyrconnell before we lit the cigars as we were concerned that the strength of the cigar might overwhelm this whiskey. We then shared a bottle of Sam Adams Imperial Stout. Now this is a drink that can stand up to even the strongest of cigars. It is rich and bold with many complex flavors that are unveiled as you drink it. It is strong, slightly sweet, thick and complex. As we finish our smoke we talked about our final impressions of this cigar. we both thought that this cigar was very close in flavor profile to the Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic. It was a smoke that held its strength and full flavor from beginning to end. We both had burn issues in the back half of the cigar. Randy liked this cigar. He thought it was a good strong cigar. He called it a "change of pace" cigar. He gave this cigar a score of 4 and would look forward to having some of these in his humidor.I gave this cigar a score of 3. I had a number of burn issues in the second half of the cigar that required several re-lights. This cigar is not for the feint of heart. It is strong and powerful, a little to much so for my taste. I would smoke it again but if I were looking to smoke a stronger cigar I would probably pick the Man-O-War or Diesel before I would smoke this cigar again. The Sam Adams Imperial Stout was a better pairing for this cigar then the Tyrconnell Irish whiskey. The strength of the stout complemented the strength of the cigar. We did, however, really like the Tyrconnell and look forward to a few more drams of it on a cold winter night.