Espinosa Habano Robusto (5x52)

This is another of the cigars Espinosa Cigars sent me with my "T-Shirt Tuesday" winnings to review on the site. This cigar differs from the La Zona cigars they sent me, in that it bears the Espinosa name and has a rather ornate band. Given my previous smoking experiences with EO Brands and the La Zona, this is going to be a good one for sure. The binder and filler are Nicaraguan tobaccos and they are housed inside a Habano seed wrapper. The wrapper has a nice oily sheen with a small amount of tooth and only 1 decent sized vein. It is well constructed, tightly packed and firm to the squeeze with no soft spots. The wrapper offers the aroma of cocoa with a hint of sweetness and the foot offers the same sweet cocoa smell. I clipped cap with my Xikar MTX and found a perfect cold draw with a smooth sweet tobacco flavor. I used the trusty single flame torch to toast and light the Espinosa. The initial third opened up with notes of sweet field grass, cocoa, cedar, and a mild nuttiness.. The finish was mildy sweet with a caramel tone. There was a fair amount of pepper, especially on the retrohale, that did calm a bit after the first half inch. I noticed a very light earthy spice that popped in a few times in the first third. The pepper was a nice zingy start but wasn't so powerful as to make retrohaling uncomfortable. Going into the second third the nutty flavors started to resemble pecan as the cocoa moves to the foreground, and notes of red pepper come and go. At somewhere near the mid-way point I noticed a fruity, berry-like note that came and went. Going into the final third the sweetness hit it's pinnacle as the cocoa moved to the background and some leather notes joined the red pepper, caramel, and pecan. The ash was a bit flaky but strong enough to hold to around 1.5" at a time. The body remained med-full and the flavor was full and rich throughout the burn. The burn was a bit wavy at time but nothing that required any burn corrections. This cigar is just what you would expect from Erik Espinosa, excellent construction with great flavors and good bit of complexity. The price point on these is around 6 bucks a stick if you buy by the box on cigarstix.com, which is not bad at all for a cigar of this caliber. They are available in the Habano wrapper and also a maduro wrapper. You can find more information on Erik Espinosa's brand at www.espinosacigars.com. Find them on twitter at http://twitter.com/espinosacigars and the link to this cigar in this size on cigarstix.com can be found HERE. As with anything Brad carries if you want to try them before committing to a box, just give him a call to create your own sampler. Thanks again to Espinosa Cigars for providing the sticks for this review, they were truly a pleasure to smoke.