Cigar Review: Eiroa CBT Maduro Robusto

More and more, cigars that used to be introduced for the first time at the annual IPCPR Trade Show are now announced ahead of time. In the case of this new offering from Christian Eiroa, it was not only announced in the months before the show, but it began arriving in shops a few weeks before the show even opened.

The cigar is the maduro follow-up to the original self-titled Eiroa cigar, a Honduran puro, which debuted last summer. While the exact origins of the tobacco aren’t disclosed, it is 100% maduro, hence the CBT name which stands for Capa, Binda, Tripa (one of many ways to refer to the wrapper, binder, and filler).

The cigar comes in four sizes, each of which will be sold in 20-count boxes. The 4 x 48 will be box-pressed, while the other three sizes (5 x 50, 6 x 54, and 6 x 60) will be traditional parejos. The cigars sell for $9-12 each and, this year, production at the Aladino Factory in Honduras, where this is made, will be limited to 150,000 cigars. I smoked three samples in the robusto size provided by CLE Cigars for this review.

Fans of Eiroa and maduro cigars will note that this is not his first all-maduro cigar. Back in 2007, Camacho Cigars (then owned by Eiroa, before he sold it to Davidoff) made the Triple Maduro with similar undisclosed origins. Though it’s been a while since I smoked the Camacho Triple Maduro, and it has been re-blended since it was introduced, Eiroa seems less full-bodied than the Camacho version.

Hardly the pitch black maduro wrapper you sometimes see, the CBT wrapper is a more natural deep brown maduro color, in part because it uses only primings from the top of the tobacco plants. Pre-light, I picked up a notable cinnamon flavor on the draw.

Once lit, the CBT demonstrates plenty of quintessential deep dark maduro flavors: earth, coffee, and cocoa. There’s also a hint of clove and baking spices. The medium- to full-bodied cigar features consistent flavors from start to finish. Construction was excellent on all three samples I smoked, with a notably razor straight burn.

I’ll admit that given the choice between two cigars and only knowing that one is a maduro and the other isn’t, I’d select the non-maduro every time. Still, this a well-made cigar (if slightly expensive at $10) with straightforward, pleasant flavors and excellent construction. That’s enough to earn the Eiroa CBT Maduro Robusto three and a half stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys