Arganese CL3 robusto 20 of 20

Appearance - a lustrous reddish brown wrapper with an slight color variation on the wrapper, creating a barber effect.

Construction - the draw is tight on this one and it feels like a rock.  I immediately remove the band, and massage the head a big to loosen the tobacco, resulting in a decent draw.

Pre-light taste - tangy sweet with earth notes, no real spice in this one.

Initial lighting - well balanced of earth, vanilla, and sweet tangy licorice with hints of spice.  The flavours are directly contradictory to the usual CL3 flavours, but still good.

Aromas - smells of burnt toast with vanilla accents.  Reminds me of my days in college when I was drunk and didn't have full coherency in attempting to use the broiler to warm up my cinnamon bagels. 

Flavours of the smoke - a comprehensive complex balance of mainly earthy notes, sweet tangy licorice, and the dash of cinnamon spices throughout.  The flavours never evolved too much from start to finish and the nub was smooth with a long aftertaste of raisins and vanilla. 

Summary - Would have definitely been inclined to finish this series on an impressive cigar rather than this one, but unfortunately it fell a bit short of the awesome ones out of the box.  The tight draw and over filling of the bunch contributed to the deviations in flavours, although the sum of it's characteristics did fulfill everything I expect from a CL3.


Overall experience -

Well, it's been a grueling twenty (20) days of consecutive reviews, and I particularly enjoyed most of them for the their impressive performances.  Overall I would say only one out of the 20 underperformed resulting in disappointment, four were average, and the rest were impressive, if not real winners in any category of construction or flavour profile.  So on average, if I, or you as it were, went to a store that actually still carries these cigars, 75% of the time you will pick up an interesting smoke.  The dominant flavours are the sweet spicy cinnamon, the earthy vanilla and coffee, and the tangy licorice. 

The final outcome of the struggle in smoking these things comes to one final conclusion that even guys who try to start in the industry without the pedigree, fall to rough times, or even become the victims of their own shady devices can come up with an impressive cigar for all to enjoy.  Yes, I was buying them when they were retailing for ~$7 per stick, and the fact that I pick these babies up at less than 1/3 the price from a discount warehouse seller like CigarMonster just adds to the value.