Southern Draw Cigars was founded by Robert Holt in 2014 and is based off the traditions of the Southern Gentleman which they define as “a “culture of honor”, that is, a culture where people avoid intentionally offending others and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct by others.”  They have  3 lines of cigars made in the AJ Fernandez factory in Nicaragua:  Kudzu, Firethorn and Quickdraw.  For now, we are just going to focus on the Kudzu, specifically the Gordo, which retails for about $11.00.

Kudzu

• Wrapper:  Habano Oscuro
• Binder:      Nicaraguan
• Filler:         Nicaraguan

The cigar has a soft box press with a closed foot which is really appealing to the eye.  The wrapper is very smooth and the draw was spot on.  Upon lighting, I was greeted with flavors of rich earth, cedar, leather, cocoa and black pepper.  The cigar puts out a ton of smoke which is another characteristic I like with my cigars.  Around the midway point, I got mainly the same flavors, except the black pepper note died down and the cigar was more sweet.  The flavor is very rich and it was hard to smoke slowly, to be honest.  The end of the cigar was just as good with notes of cedar, leather, sweet cocoa with the black pepper coming back.  I also started to get notes of espresso coffee as well.  Overall I really enjoyed the cigar.  I was impressed as I was expecting the blend to be watered down in the larger ring gauge, but I was wrong.  Robert Holt told me the blend was tweaked a bit for the larger ring gauge so that wouldn’t happen. I was dubious of this, but he was right.  The flavor and richness was there just as he said.  The soft box press made it pleasant to smoke, even with the larger ring gauge.  It was a pretty impressive start as an introduction to this new brand.  I’m looking forward to what Southern Draw has to offer in the future.