KILO Cigar Toro by United Cigar

Barry Stein, former cigar blogger and good friend of mine, had always dreamed of having his own cigar line. Barry left the cigar blogging world and joined Miami Cigar Company as Director of Social Media giving him the opportunity to finally blend his own cigar with Manual Inoa, master blender, at La Aurora. In 2013, Barry and Manual finally had a blend that they released to certain retailers on a trial basis to rave reviews. In 2014, Barry left Miami Cigar Company and joined the team at 2 Guys Cigar Shop and United Tobacco in New Hampshire. Barry was able to continuing developing the KILO cigar with the help of Noel Rojas, owner of Guayacan Cigars, where they tweaked the initial blend to the KILO blend we have today with United Cigar. Produced at Noel Rojas’ factory in Nicaragua, Aroma de Jalapa, KILO features an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Nicaraguan Corojo 2006 binder and 3 different 3 year old ligero tobaccos from Noel’s farm which 10% is from Aganorsa for the filler. KILO comes in two sizes:

• Robusto – 5 x 50 ($9.00)
• Toro – 6 x 52 ($9.50)

Pre-Light

The cigar has a silky smooth, oily dark brown wrapper with a perfectly applied cap. As I cut the cap and take a draw on the cigar, the cigar has flavors of cedar and black cherry. The draw is spot on edging a little to the loose side.

First Half

First off, this cigar is very smoky. I mean, it looks like an old locomotive just went through here. I love that. The cigar, on the first half, has a ton of rich flavor. I’m picking up notes of cedar, leather, black cherry, pepper, caramelized sugar and slight creaminess. The cigar has a long finish and a dense smoke make it to where it almost seems like you can chew the smoke. Very tasty.

Last Half

As the cigar burned down, the caramelized sugar note slightly died off. The cedar, leather, black cherry and creaminess were still there, but the spice note turned from the pepper to a cinnamon note. Along with the cinnamon, I started to pick up a nice espresso note that I really enjoyed.

Overall Impressions

As a disclaimer, as I stated in the beginning of this review, Barry Stein is a friend of mine so you can take all of this with a grain of salt, but I really liked this cigar. Barry being a friend or not, it is a quality cigar that I thoroughly enjoyed. I never got a chance to try the original version, but this one is top notch. Rich smoke with a ton of smoke at a reasonable price point. You really can’t go wrong with the KILO.