Zino Nicaragua Robusto
Posted on February 09 2022
Vitola: 5x54
Smoking Time: 64 Minutes
Cigars Smoked: 3
Body: Medium
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Honduran, Nicaraguan, Dominican
MSRP: $6.50
Zino is named after Zino Davidoff, and aims to capture his spirit of adventure and “discovery”. This new reiteration of Zino, is very bold and colorful. Boasting bright yellow boxes, and imagery of a volcano on the advertisements. Being that this cigar is essentially from Davidoff, I have very high expectations coming into it. With a cigar at this price point, it is either going to hit or miss. After smoking my first I can say it hits, and very hard at that.
Visual Inspection: While I am curious why they have named this cigar “Nicaragua”, on account of it only having a binder, and part fillers from the country. The Ecuadorian wrapper is what you would expect from a shade grown leaf, subtle and only having trace veins on the cigar. I’m smoking this right off of the truck, so it feels slightly fragile and firm. So with that I will be avoiding squeezing it to prevent any negative side effects.
A cold draw provides surprisingly sweet notes of honey, vanilla, and barnyard. Met with an aroma of barnyard, and birch wood. Cutting the cigar was easy, and has not caused any issues or splitting to the head.
First Third: Wow, Immediately flavors of honey, oak, walnuts, are most upfront, with a lingering brown sugar sweetness. A retrohale brings mild pepper to the profile, and really helps add to the body of the cigar. So far this cigar is a perfect medium, the flavors are bold, but under control, and the smoke is beautifully light, with just the right amount of punch.
After the first inch a new set of flavors start to develop, nice lemon zest, met with the mouth feel of whipped egg whites, oddly familiar to lemon meringue, if it lacked the immense sweetness. The oak is very complimentary to the zest, as is the walnut. The burn line started out well, but has slightly diminished in quality, however only dipping slightly.
Second Third: I’m still very shocked at the depth to the flavor profile. Smooth notes of graham cracker have come forward, which replaced the lemon zest. The burn line keeps going back and forth, from clean to wavey, and I would say it’s due to inconsistencies in the filler leaves. Whatever it is, I'm hardly bothered because of the exceptional flavors. There haven’t been any acrid flavors, or bitterness, which is amazing for a cigar of this price range.
A retrohale brings the pepper back into the profile, and adds a touch of heat on the tongue. Brown sugar joins the profile yet again, once again towards the end of exhaling and then it lingers. There haven't been any issues with the wrapper, no cracking, to any degree.
Last Third: Starting out closest to the first third, the flavors are drier, flavors of oak, walnuts, honey, and newer notes of graham cracker and egg whites. Brown sugar proceeds to linger as well. The retrohale has become smoother, with only the slightest hint of pepper, now accentuating the graham cracker and honey.
The ash is far from firm, it has fallen off twice, but it isn't flaking. If I had been paying more attention, I’m sure I could have ashed before it fell. The burn line is the cleanest it has been the entire time. Pepper is starting to become more prominent on the tip of the tongue as we get close to the end. Unfortunately the cigar becomes hot sooner than I would think, possibly due to my smoking speed, So I will rest it and see how it plays out.
After resting the cigar it became much smoother, met by more prevalent pepper on the tongue. I am curious about how the other vitolas will perform, and I plan on finding out, starting with the short torpedo.
Final Thoughts: Even though this cigar felt dry, there was no sign of that during smoking. No cracks, no acrid flavors, simply lush flavors. Oddly complex for a medium bodied cigar. With consistently bold flavors, and well weighted smoke. Zino Nicaragua is something anyone can appreciate, both new and seasoned. I would recommend this as a morning cigar, and it is absolutely box worthy. I will be picking some of these up for myself, and sharing them as often as I can.
-Sam