CAO Last Stick Standing "A"

Video review HERE.



Today I am continuing my review of the CAO Last Stick Standing series. All of the blends are the work of Rick Rodriguez.

The cigar for today: the "A" cigar. This is, as you can see above, the lightest wrapper of the 3. It appears that it is a Connecticut wrapper.

This cigar, like the previous one, is well constructed and dense.

After cutting the cap the test draw was effortless. The initial flavors were leather, wood, citrus notes, pepper, which I could already feel lingering on my palate. As usual, I let it sit for a minute be continuing.

About 1/2 inch in the cigar had somewhat settled down. The cigar is heavy on leather and wood with semi-sweet grapefruit citrus and nice pepper. The finish is a dry vanilla with lingering pepper. This cigar seems quite different from the "C". This cigar is medium bodied at this point.

At the one inch point there are hints of cedar mixed in with the grapefruit citrus. The leather is still heavy but the wood has subsided a little. There are the beginnings of richness in the cigar and it carries over to the vanilla finish. The vanilla is not as dry tasting on the finish.

At about the midpoint the leather notes have greatly decreased. The wood notes are now more forward and the grapefruit notes are now pretty much entirely cedar. The finish is a creamier vanilla and the pepper lingers nicely. This cigar is much lighter than the "C" version. It is definitely medium bodied. I wonder where the leather went as it was quite intense at the beginning of the cigar.

The cedar notes in the cigar are dry. There is not much richness in them. The wood notes are gone and now we have coffee notes. Yes, it bounced around quite a bit. The finish is a semi-rich vanilla with lingering pepper. The burn continues to be very even.

At the end of the cigar the dry cedar continued with a touch of richness. The coffee notes continued and the pepper remained very good. The finish is a semi-rich vanilla (just a touch of richness) and lingering pepper. This cigar would have been fantastic if it had a nice richness throughout but the richness was low and at times non-existent. The flavors were pretty good but not intense enough. The changes did not bother me and in fact made the cigar more interesting. But without the richness it lacked the pop to make it a great cigar.


Score: 86