Ramon Allones Superiores

[mm12]

These only had a few days to rest, but I couldn't think of what I wanted to smoke today, and I really wanted to see what these were like, so I fired one up this afternoon.

Appearance is pretty decent overall. The wrapper is a bit lighter than I would like to see, but there seems to be a reasonable amount of oily sheen. The head on this cigar is tapered a little bit like you'd see on a 109. Construction is good; the cigar feels uniform throughout. There's a good barnyard aroma at cold. Draw is just a tiny bit on the firmer side of what I'd like, but it wasn't a problem. Cold draw had a flavor of dry hay.

1/3: The cigar opened at medium-full with flavors of stewed fruit, and that nice familiar Ramon Allones Christmas spice. As I progressed through the first third, the body pulled back to medium and a nice creaminess began to replace to stewed fruit.

2/3: Still medium, maybe a hair under. The cream and Chistmas spice starts to pick up a bit of a nutty flavor. After a while, the cream fades out and the stewed fruit comes back. The body begins to pick up, so I'm left with a flavor profile similar to the open. As I near the end of the end of the second third, some darker woody flavors begin to emerge.

3/3: Medium-full in body. I'm getting flavors of wood, stewed fruit, and Christmas spice. After a bit, some nice dark roast coffee notes begin to show up and eventually take over. The body is up to full, and the flavor profile shifts to black coffee and black pepper spice. The cigar comes to end with some really rich caramel flavors on the last few draws.

The stewed fruit and Christmas spice combo in this cigar really reminded me of an RA 898. Just a wonderful combo of flavors, and I'm happy to see the blenders bring it back. The creaminess of this cigar was something new to me in a Ramon Allones, but I think it worked well. I really loved this cigar, and I rate it at 93 right now. I'm not really sure how well this is going to age, because the flavors are already so well-defined and complex and it lacked any sort of youthful punch except for in the back end.

Hopefully if the 5000 boxes of these sell out quickly enough, HSA will make it a regular production cigar. I really think they used very well-aged tobacco in these though, so future runs might end up a bit different.

[TrickNick]

Great to hear these are so good. I'll definitely have to pick some up now. Thanks!

[CBL]

Great that you fell on the sword for us and reviewed this cigar in such an early stage! Mine are ordered but still waiting to be shipped, hope I'll be able to smoke them this summer when I get back home

Thanks for the review, you just made the waiting more unbearable

[adic88]

Got a few boxes of these coming my way. Great to know i pulled the trigger early on what looks like will turn out to be a great cigar.

[dicko]

Thanks for the review. they sound like a winner. defo going to buy some!

[Dbone]

Nice review, thanks. I enjoyed reading it. The flavors sound spectacular, a real gem.