Don Ramon Maduro

Last week the HJ Bailey Company reached out to me to review a few cigars that they recently came out with as a tribute to the founder of their company. HJ Bailey was founded in 1932 by Raymond Roth and he passed away in 1998. Produced in Honduras by Camacho cigars, these cigars are the result of a passion and love of cigars to honor a man loved by his family who still runs the business to this day.

Cigar: Don Ramon Maduro
Origin: Honduras
Size: 6 x 60
Wrapper: Honduras
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Honduras

Appearance & Construction (17/20): A flawless leaf with virtually no veins adorns the maduro version which has the appearance of dark chocolate. The large style band on the cigar is eye catching if not a little busy and the one drawback is the weight of the cigar. For a 6 x 60 the smoke is very light and the foot reveals a loosely packed cigar.

Flavor & Notes (27/30): The foot of this cigar reveals prelight notes of anise, and on the draw the notes are sweet. Upon lighting this cigar one quickly realizes this is a true maduro smoke with a sweetness to it and a well defined cocoa is the primary note on this impressive cigar. The cocoa begin to take on a more chocolate like note with notes of wood and leather creeping up in the background in the second third of this smoke. The final third has notes of pepper, leather and cocoa.

Burn/Ash/Draw (22/25): Despite a pretty jagged burn line the cigar I never felt the need to touch up the cigar. The impressive thing is the medium colored grey ash which held on. And despite looking to ash at 4″ and not wanting to make a mess I had to work to break the ash. The draw is a little loose, but nothing to really complain about.

Overall (22/25): I generally dread having to smoke a cigar I never heard of to do a review at the request of a manufacture, but this cigar is a definite winner. Even though I dislike big ring cigars, I did not want to put this down. The value of this smoke is great, the one draw back is how fast it smoked.

Rating: 88
Price: $80.00 a box of 25