Chris Arolfo founded Cabal Cigars in 2013 after managing the successful The Smoke Ring cigar lounge located in Webster, TX for many years. Chris teamed up with Hendrik Kelner Jr. to come up with the Cabal cigar. After 2 years of development, Chris and Hendrik finally found their perfect blend and released it out of the Kelner Boutique Factory (KBF) located in the Dominican Republic. The blend comes in 3 sizes:
- Corona Gorda – 5.5 x 46
- Robusto – 5 x 50
- Short Robusto – 4 x 52
The blend is the same for all there but with tweaks the blend for each size:
- Dimensions: 5.5 x 46
- Wrapper: Dominican Bonao
- Binder: Peru, Dominican Republic
- Filler: Nicaragua, Pennsylvania, Dominican Republic
Appearance and Pre-Light
The cigar has a very nice medium brown wrapper with no large vein that could get in the way of the burn. After clipping the cap, the draw is perfect with notes of cedar and some honey sweetness. Cabal Cigars has a QR code on the band that, as a geek, is a really nice touch to me.
First Half
The first half of the cigar starts off amazingly well. I am getting notes of cedar, white pepper, graham cracker and honey sweetness. I get more white pepper on the retrohale with a little of the honey sweetness. The cigar is smoking well with a good amount of smoke.
Last Half
The cigar is still burning great with a great draw. Cedar is still the dominant flavor, but now I’m getting nice almond flavor. The honey sweetness is still there, but it’s more faint. I’m also picking up a little bitter coffee flavor with hints of cocoa.
Overall Impressions
I really enjoyed this cigar. Besides being my absolute favorite vitola, the flavors were great. The Cabal corona gorda was a very smooth smoke that delivered on every puff. With a medium body and a very nice flavor profile, I could smoke these any time of day and be completely satisfied. I also think most all cigar smokers would enjoy these as they have enough body for even the most full bodied smokers, but aren’t so full bodied to where mild smokers couldn’t enjoy them as well. t couldn’t definitely see myself buy a box of these.
Love the Cabal- excellent cigar. Chris is doing good work with these.
My favorite size too! Though I favor the original blend I think these are great, there is only a slight difference in flavor profiles since they ran out of that specific binder tobacco.
First, Ben, thank you very much for a killer review. I’m glad you enjoyed and I think you nailed what we were going for!
And Charlie H. I just want to clarify that between the first run of corona gorda’s and current productions we only rearranged the binder tobaccos to burn more evenly, but we still use the exact same blend just moved one of the binder leaves into the filler for better and more even combustion. Though yes I think the first run came off a tiny bit stronger
Thanks Chris for the clarification, that may be what I noticed then…I like my cigars pretty strong/full but this doesn’t stop me from buying the cigar, love the core Cabal line…oh btw I just ordered some of the Linda’s! I’m super stoked about that cigar…I’ve already heard from two others that its their favorite cigar of 2015!