Romeo y Julieta Belicosos
Filler, binder, wrapper all Cuban
Vitola: Campana (belicoso)
Size: 5 1/2 x 52

Appearance/construction: 13/15

Almost flawless, smooth and veinless surface with beautiful, rich brown colorado color. Excellently constructed tapered cap with a pointed head typical for a belicoso, which was a piece of cake to clip in a single try. The construction was quite tight and felt a little hard, but that did not affect the draw at all. The ash was holding great for about 2 1/2", but did have some flakes. I blew on it and the flakes went flying, while the ash stayed there and now looked perfect. As some new flakes popped up along the way, I did that at least four times with the same effect. Also, many of you must have noticed that often the gravity makes long ash bend if you hold the cigar in the same position, and if you rotate the cigar 180 degrees, ash would start gradually bending the other way creating sort of a curve shape. So nothing like that here! It kept straight until I gently pushed it into the ashtray. You think it fell off? No! It just changed the angle a somewhat. It fell only after my second attempt.

So the verdict is: very good look and construction. Score points deducted for more than normal stiffness and ash flakes.

Flavor: 22/25
Prelight smell wasn’t strong, with a little more smell at the foot than along the body, but what could be smelled was very good tobacco. Prelight draw brought some dried fruit, honey and lots of spice. In fact I was a little stunned by enduring sharp spicy taste on my tongue. Just wouldn’t go away even when I rubbed my tongue against my teeth and palate. When it was finally gone, I took another draw and again the same thing! I was playing like that for about 15 minutes, without lighting the cigar.
When lit up it started with spice in the 1st third. Went like that for a while to give way to some leather and wood which lasted into the 2nd third. In the 2nd third I also felt clove and a quite unusual taste for a cigar: very distinct roasted sunflower seed. In the last third more wood and leftover spice, but after knocking off the ash I could feel a little harshness. Not a great deal though, didn’t ruin much the overall experience.

I would classify this stogie as medium body, but with some sharpness to confuse the smoker.

Pretty good flavor, at least for me. Score points deducted for weak prelight smell, somewhat excessive sharpness of spicy flavors, a little harshness at the end.

Smoking characteristics: 21/25

I lit up this RyJ with one long and one short cedar spills. Less than 1cm through there was a tiny “peninsula”, which I fixed by a one second long lighter flame touch. I did that two more times later, but now I think maybe didn’t really have to do that. The burn was generally OK in terms of evenness, but not perfect. Also the ash was grayish rather than white, plus there were at least two small black spots. As far as I know this means tobacco didn’t burn fully, although I actually never felt anything like that nasty smell of the incomplete burn.
The draw was good all the way, which I was somewhat surprised at, because I thought it was very tightly packed.

Score points deducted for not perfectly even light up and burn, several signs of incomplete burning.

Overall Impression: 31/35
I have had better belicosos and better other vitolas. However, I thought it’s quite a good smoke. I feel compelled to recommend RyJ Belicosos to others, as a good after-dinner smoke. Some people may enjoy it in the morning as an addition to coffee or tea, but I’m not among them, as I prefer milder smokes for that. Those who don’t like sharp spicy flavors - this one is not for you.

Total score: 87/100

in my short experience with cubans, ive never had an ash hold more than about an inch and a half, 2 inches..... and if you blow on it! heck, if you look at it wrong, well it usually goes flying........ not to say your not smoking a real habana, but ive never heard of a cuban ash holding up that much, even after you touch it on the ash tray........ look at sheepshead bay's cuban killer ash thread..... thats a one in a million.......

great review though.......

Matt, that's right a lot of the times, though I did have other CCs holding ash for quite long. For this one I wasn't surprised, because as I wrote it was very tightly packed. I got it from local LCDH, but besides that the distinct "cubannes" of flavor present in most CC was there, despite a few unusual tones.

Thanks for comments.

Nice review. These are good cigars, not on most people's radar.

I bought a box several years back at a LCDH simply because the cigars were dark and glistening with oils. There was early development of plume and the price was fair. However, this Compana was quite single dimensional - some wood, leather, and expresso notes, but pretty much stayed the same throughout the entire smoke. Medium bodied from a '04 box. Good, but not exceptional even though they looked terrific.

quote:

Originally posted by yani:
I bought a box several years back at a LCDH simply because the cigars were dark and glistening with oils. There was early development of plume and the price was fair. However, this Compana was quite single dimensional - some wood, leather, and expresso notes, but pretty much stayed the same throughout the entire smoke. Medium bodied from a '04 box. Good, but not exceptional even though they looked terrific.

Mine had no plume and apparently was of more recent roll (don't have the box - I bought a few singles). I see in the rest we agree, except that I never felt espresso, and instead had spice, clove and sunflower seed. Also agree that it's not exceptional - otherwise I would score it higher than 90.