Gurkha Doble (Double) Maduro Toro
Size – 6 x 52
Age - 1 month
Cost – $4-6 online
Wrapper – Maduro (Dominican Republic?)
Construction – This is a well constructed cigar with a very attractive dark chocolate colored wrapper that had no evident flaws. The symmetry was good and the feel was springy and firm. (9/10)
Burn – Burn was a little unruly but mostly even. No touchups were needed but I did have to relight once and overall it was not a straight, even burn. (6/10)
Ash – Ash was very light grey, nearly white. It held solid for 2″
Draw & Smoke – Draw was just right and a fair amount of smoke was produced with each puff.
Flavor – There is a type of beer called a rauchbier, in which the malted barley is smoked, usually by virtue of being dried over an actual fire, before it is used in making the beer. Their flavor is very distinctive and not always in a good way. The Gurkha Doble Maduro had a base flavor profile of coffee bean, some cocoa and dark bittersweet chocolate, but it also had another, distincive smoky characteristic. The closest thing I could compare it to was a rauchbier – it has almost a campfire-like quality to it. The cigar is mellow and smooth but I found the “smoky” quality to be equal parts interesting and off-putting. Room aroma was nice, with a cedar note and some of that sweet maduro smell.
Strength – Medium
Rating – 6/10
Value - 4/10
Drink - Australian Merlot. A good pairing but nothing extraordinary.
Notes - I am still on the fence about this cigar. I’m not sure if the unique flavor I experienced was typical of this line or if my review stick had one strange leaf tucked in it somewhere. I am looking forward to revisiting this cigar once my other stick has aged.
Reviews
52 Ring, 6/10, Cigar Review, Gurkha, Maduro, Medium, Toro
The UPS person came by today with a package for me – inside was a bunch of low price/value stuff I had bought on Cigar Bid! So the humidor gets a lot of new stuff and is pretty much full for now. I’m hoping a lot of the stuff I have in there will age well.
The total order:
- 20 Cu-Avana Maduro Toro
- 20 Petrus Reposado No. 6000 Torpedo
- 20 Victor Sinclair Corojo Robusto
- Victor Sinclair mega sampler (5 Connecticut Yankee Toro, 5 Primeros Toro, 5 Triple Corojo Toro, 5 Vintage Select Toro),
- CI Mild/Med sampler (2 Perdomo Lot 23 Churchill, 2 Fonseca 5-50, 2 Gurkha Doble Maduro, 2 RP Connecticut Toro, Perdomo Reserve Champagne Epicure)
Humidor
Cigar, Cigars, Corojo, Cu-Avana, Gurkha, Humidor, Maduro, Natural, Rocky Patel, Victor Sinclair
Today I found this cigar lurking at the bottom of my desktop humidor. It’s the last of a 10-pack I bought about 6 months ago and so I figured I’d fire it up and review it on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Gurkha Symphony Robusto
Size – 6 x 50
Cost – $6 – 8 online
Wrapper – Connecticut
Construction – Excellent construction with a perfect cap, almost no veins in the smooth wrapper. The foot was slightly chipped from being moved about in my humidor. (9/10)
Burn – Dead even from light to put down. (10/10)
Ash – Very light grey with a smattering of darker grey. Held firm for 2″
Draw – A bit tight but not annoyingly so.
Flavor – I lit this cigar up expecting the grassy, slightly acrid taste I have begun to associate with Connecticut wrappers, but I thankfully found nothing of the sort. What I did get was very mild and creamy flavors – so mild it was tough to distinguish them at first. Then a soft creaminess and woody, almost pine tree-like flavor and aroma developed. The finish was peppery around the back of the palate. The aroma really helped this cigar’s character; a slightly sweet nutty smell helped bring out the nearly nonexistent flavors in the first two thirds.
Smoke – A nice large volume of smoke from every puff.
Strength – Mild
Rating – 7/10
Value – 6/10 At MSRP this, like most Gurkhas, is a pretty poor value. Those who are interested in picking up a few of these at an auction site or on special should be able to do so as low as $3 a stick.
Drink – Hot earl grey with cream and sugar. A nice compliment for this smoke. If it was evening I’d pair it with an assertively hopped beer such as Sierra Nevada or ESB.
Notes – Overall the cigar was a bid too mild for me but it did have some enjoyable complexity. I think 6 months in the humi helped this stick out. My tasting notes from when I bought them noted more harshness and a more uneven burn. Seems like a good candidate for aging.
Reviews
50 Ring, 7/10, Connecticut, Gurkha, Mild
