Viaje Holiday Blend 2015 (5 x 54)

Video review HERE.

(Description portions taken from Cigar-Coop.com)

The Viaje Holiday Blend 2015 is the sixth installment over the last seven years for Viaje.  For the first time the Holiday Blend will be a box-press shape and will measure 5 x 54. The cigar will feature a Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper (another first for the Holiday Blend).

The 2014 version was my number 2 overall cigar for 2015. I was quite impressed. Now it's time to see how the next installment pans out.

The Viaje Holiday Blend will be packaged in 30 count boxes.

Wrapper: Brazilian Arapiraca

Binder: Not Disclosed

Filler: Not Disclosed

Country of Origin: Dominican Republic (PDR Cigars)

Box-Press Robusto: 5 x 54

The cigar is box pressed-ish. By that I mean it's not a sharp box press. It has an unfinished foot.

The test draw was very good after cutting the cap. The initial flavors were sweet cedar and boysenberry, coffee, and a touch of cream at the tail end of the boysenberry. I noticed a little dry wood also. The pepper was a black pepper rated at an 8. It tasted like a nice ground black pepper. The finish is a cream with some buttery notes.

One inch in I am satisfied with my initial impressions. There are a lot of dark roasted coffee notes in this cigar. There is now a touch of butter on the front end flavors. The coffee notes take up about half of the front end flavors. The finish now has a touch of dry wood now. The cigar is medium bodied and I expect it to move to medium to full bodied.

About 2 inches in the flavors are coming together and getting better. The dry wood I spoke of is now a dry cedar. It is a nice dry, sweet cedar and it combines nicely with the boysenberry. The cigar is burning nice and slowly.

Around the midpoint the flavors are heavy coffee, dry, sweet cedar with a touch of cream and butter. The boysenberry notes are getting faint. The finish is about the same as before. The cigar is still medium bodied and that amazes me. The cigar is fairly consistent.

With a little over an inch remaining the flavors have boiled down to dry, sweet cedar, butter, and black coffee. There is a touch of richness but not very much. The coffee still makes up about 40% of the front end flavors.

As the cigar ended I noticed that the ash fell only once. The cigar made various small changes and it had nice flavors. To be honest I thought last year's edition was a little better but this is a cigar that should not be missed. My local shop sold out in an hour so I had to find these online. The cigar remained medium bodied. It had a nice burn time. I enjoyed the dry, sweet cedar notes with butter. Very good cigar.

Score: 92