Tabacos de la Cordillera
IGM Kalavera Maduro Blue
WRAPPER: Costa Rican
BINDER: Costa Rican
FILLER: Costa Rican
FORMAT: Gordo
ORIGIN: Costa Rica
INTENSITY: Full
WEBSITE: www.tabacordilleracr.com
NOTES:
Cajun spice mix | Cocoa butter | Orange blossom honey
Sharply & erratically focused. It's got 'Linebacker Eyes.' Piercing pungency is up-top w/cayenne and smoked paprika lead, aggressively. White peppercorn. Hard to see much else. I keep getting sacked, looking up at stadium lights. Concussion protocol, much? Cocoa butter & honey is neat but sinks to upper middlings in their washed-away complexities. Grapefruit pith happens somewhere under there. Under that is a dense simple hiking trail earthiness.
Unwavering. Linear. Thru the nose, it's surprisingly not utterly jarring & exhibits a tick of smoky floral bits. Chamomile, dandelion. Fleeting. Moistens the palate well, but the notes are all dry & fleeting on-thru the finish. There is a fading of spice toward the back-end but not much else pokes out to say hey. A pins & needles body of N'awlins taken to novelty extremes.
The draw is nice, a tick of smooth resistance, there. Burn-line ain't perfect but requires 0 assist. Ash stacks dryly, not to a full inch. Aroma is curiously mute; particularly since the smoke out-put is easily moderate. My palate feels charred. Throaty. I will say this -- it's big, this thing. & never tedious. Just daunting. A challenging jaunting? Nah. Imbalanced & disturbing via angry spice and oddly sedate palsy.
FINAL GRADE: C+
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79 D 60-69 F 0-59
::: very :::