New Cigars from CAO, Room 101 and Punch

I’ve been working through some samples I’ve had in the humidor for a bit. Starting out with the CAO Amazon Basin Extra Ańejo. The Amazon Basin came out first in 2014, and used a Brazilian Bragança leaf, which is processed what I imagine to be similar to the andullo process of twisting the leaf into tobacco sausages. They allegedly move the tobacco out of the Amazon Rainforest by canoe, which sounds a little far-fetched. The cigar has a Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and the Brazilian, Dominican and Colombian fillers. The Extra Ańejo was rolled in 2021 and left to age, I suppose, longer than the original batch. I’ll be honest, of the four original Amazon Basin blends, I was not a big fan of the original (or the last, I loved the middle two!). This one was pretty darned good. Although it isn’t one hundred percent up my alley, it was a tasty smoke. I smoked it through the tobacco-cord “band” with no discernable flavor difference. It had some sweetness and some spice, and something unique. I suspect if you were one who loved the original, you’ll really like this.

I think the Room 101 Daruma is the first Room 101 cigar to be released since the brand was acquired by Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) and put under the Forged umbrella of brands. This is a Nicaraguan puro, oddly enough, it’s made by Oliva for Matt Booth. I suppose this shows that nothing is really changing with the Room 101 brand, STG could very easily made this in one of their several factories. The only criticism I have is that the fancy-pants outer sleeve on the cigar doesn’t have any identification on it save for the Fu and lotus symbols, which, if you aren’t familiar with Room 101, you won’t know what it is out of the box. Once stripped of the outer wrappings, the band makes it clear. I got a sweet wood profile from this cigar, and I really liked it. It burned well, and was completely enjoyable. I dig it, and my wife wants all the outer sleeves.

I was hesitant to even include this last one, because I find just about everything about it to be silly. If I didn’t like it’s predecessor, the Punch Champion, so much, I might have just passed on this one. Punch has been doing novelty releases for a while now, which I guess fits with the branding, which is based on the puppet Mr. Punch from the UK in the 1600s. He was a clown, and presented slapstick comedy. The Punch Dad Bod is presented with a silly necktie band, packed 5 cigars per can in a 4 -pack. I suppose it’s supposed to be like beer cans, but it comes off looking more like energy drinks to me. All that, and four of the five samples I received were damaged, and I’ve heard from others they they were damaged as well (both samples and in the wild). Now, this does have a fragile Cameroon wrapper, over a Connecticut broadleaf binder, with Nicaraguan Condega, Dominican Piloto Cubano, Honduran La Entrada and Brazilian Mata Fina fillers. This is a six country blend in a fairly small cigar. Once I get passed all the silliness, it’s a pretty tasty cigar, with some nuttiness, some sweetness and some earthiness. I rather enjoyed the couple I’ve had, one had some foot damage that wasn’t an issue at all (the other one exploded!). I have a dad bod, but I’m not particularly proud of it, so this is a Father’s Day “pass” for me, but it’s a good smoke, and it’s priced very nicely, so give it a shot.

That’s all for today. I’m so happy that the weather has warmed up and I can sit on the porch and write my Sunday post with a cigar, today it’s a Protocol Themis Churchill, a delicious shade cigar. Hopefully I will see some of you next Saturday at Battleship Beef Part II on the Battleship New Jersey! If you like food and cigars, it’s the place to be. Looking forward to seeing some great friends there! Until the next time,