It’s been too long between reviews and for that I apologize. The last few days I have had to start work early, do car repairs and one day I just didn’t want to wake up. Unless I smoke in the AM or early evening in seclusion I won’t do a review so I had to neglect the blog for a few days.

I had a family BBQ today and took a cigar gifted to me by someone at the cigar show in Las Vegas. I made my way through the woods and sat by the lake with today’s stick. The CAO LX 2 is probably one of the most anticipated cigars of the year. The LX2 stand for Ligero x 2. Ligero comes from the top half of the tobacco plant and receives the most sunlight of the plant. The direct sunlight enhances the strength of the tobacco and results in a higher level of nicotine. So if you are prone to that light headed queasy feeling have something sweet before you smoke one of these.

The Skinny:

Cigar: CAO LX2
Origin: Nicaragua
Size: 5 x 48 Robusto
Wrapper: Nicaragua
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

Pre-Light: A few people have reviewed these cigars and they all pretty much suggested the cigar needed some aging time, so I let it age a week. I wanted to go longer, but really wanted to try this stick. At first appearance it doesn’t look all that. The cap is slightly sloppy, the wrapper has more veins visible then any cigar I can think of and there is so much bumpiness to the cigar that a blind man might think he is reading moby dick. The scent at the foot was nutty with some slight pepper, while the wrapper had something I couldn’t really define and was very oily. The pre-light draw revealed some earth. One note about the band, when I first saw the ad campaign I was very impressed with the design. With the cigar in hand the band is even more impressive and it’s a nice piece of art.

Smoke: Cigar Jack was the first person to review this cigar and one thing he stated was the cigar had notes of jalapeño peppers which made me wonder what he smoked prior to the LX2 but right away on the first third of the smoke I picked up some really hot pepper. However, I wouldn’t call it jalapeño I would say it was closer to cayenne pepper. The other notes of the cigar were a sweet creamy chocolate, and some nuttiness. The cayenne pepper came and went and was most noticeable in the first and last third of the stick. Despite the questionable appearance of the cigar it smoked really well, needing no touch ups, and while the burn line was slightly jagged it was extremely acceptable.

Overall: I used a punch cut on this cigar to limit the smoke intake because of how strong everyone said these cigars are. I believe due to the fact I used to hole punch the cigar appeared to be more medium bodied to me. As I said in my preface this cigar is highly anticipated and should live up to the hype for most people. It is to date the best CAO I have ever smoked, and I consider myself a big fan of their smokes. If the appearance was better it would of scored 2-3 points higher.

My Local Price: TBD (Not yet available)
Rating: 91 (Out of 100)