Toro Y Leon Habano Claro Famosos (5 x 52)

Video review HERE.

Toro Y Leon cigars are all Nicaraguan. Their website describes the Habano Claro like this:

This exceptional cigar is a mélange of carefully selected and extremely aged tobacco leaves from our fields in Esteli and Jalapa Valley in Nicaragua. Born from our best Cuban-seed long-filler and binder they are all draped in a rare Habano-seed “desflorado” wrapper. The plants require constant vigilance and when the flower buds are just getting ready to bloom they are cut off giving the tobacco an extra rich and smooth flavor, making this type of wrapper to be among the best and the most expensive available anywhere. Our Catadores recommend this Nicaraguan Puro as the ultimate after lunch or dinner indulgence.

Their cigars are extremely well made. The habano wrapper is a Connecticut shade with just a hint of red. It is a habano but it's very light in color. This cigar was triple capped. (Even with the poor photo quality below you can still make out the triple cap)

This cigar is quite dense and very weighty in the hand. It appears to be as heavy as a double corona! It's VERY dense.

I clipped the minimum from the cap and gave it a test draw. It was just a bit firm. I'm actually surprised it drew at all based on the density it had! The initial flavors were grapefruit citrus and vanilla. The pepper was very good (7 out of 10). There are also some coffee notes. This cigar really needs to sit for a minute to let the burn even out and the flavors to develop.

About 1/2 inch in the flavors settled down into a slightly sweet grapefruit citrus with cream, with subtle wood notes to go along with the coffee. Mixed in with the grapefruit citrus are hints of cedar. They are subtle but you can taste them. The finish is a toasted vanilla with some of the wood notes. The burn did even out. This cigar, because of it's density, will have to be smoked slower than you might smoke other robustos. On the draw you can detect the cream. As soon as you get all the smoke in your mouth the grapefruit citrus explodes. The cigar is mild at this point which is not a big surprise based on the wrapper. I expect it to move to medium at some point.

About 1 inch in the cream notes are now rich. They combine nicely with the grapefruit citrus. The finish is also more of a cream. There is also a nice amount of lingering pepper on the finish also (5 out of 10). The burn is going along nicely. Anytime there are rich notes in a cigar it's a good thing in my opinion. The ash is almost white in color. It has moved to mild to medium in body.

At the 1 1/2 inch point there are a lot more wood notes on the front end. You still have the rich cream and grapefruit citrus with the same amount of pepper. As you can see the ash is quite tight and in the picture above it was ready to drop. The finish is still one of cream and the same amount of lingering pepper.

There were no big changes from the 1 1/2 inch point through the end with the exception of  more cedar notes mixed into the cream and grapefruit citrus. The pepper, coffee, and wood notes remained very good. The finish remained about the same and the lingering pepper moved up a bit (6 out of 10). The cigar ended up medium bodied at best but it had nice flavors. I was impressed with this cigar.


Score: 92