Review of Aging Room Maduro Cigar

Boutique Blend's Aging Room Maduro cigars are made in the Dominican Republic with a blend of Dominican filler and binder tobaccos, and Maduro Nicaraguan wrappers. These are small batch cigars that were introduced in 2013, for a niche market of discriminating cigar connoisseurs. Aging Room Maduro cigars are available in five sizes, including the Presto (4½ x 48) that was sampled for this review. The online price for this particular vitola is about $43 for a 5-pack.

The Aging Room Maduro Presto cigar began with a very sweet peppery flavor in the medium-to-full bodied range for the first 5-10 minutes. The pepper was quite hot but not overly strong, and I could sense a hot spicy sensation at the top of my throat. Not enough to cause any irritation, but definitely very noticeable. After another five minutes, the intensity of the flavors began to tame down just a bit, but the body moved up to the full range. I found this cigar to be complex and perhaps too stimulating, and not a cigar to sit down with and relax.

The cigar had a very good draw, held a long ash, and burned very slowly but just a bit unevenly. I applied a couple of touch-up lights during the 55 minutes that it took me to smoke the cigar down to just over two inches remaining, when it finally went out by itself. I was impressed that a cigar of this relatively small size could last so long, and I was also surprised by the intensity of the flavors. This cigar has the potential to really impress certain types of cigar connoisseurs who enjoy its particular flavor characteristics. For more mainstream cigar smokers, I would rate the Aging Room Maduro with a very respectable 3.75 points on a 5-point scale. For a cigar that is less intense but still uniquely delightful, I would recommend the Aging Room M356 that I reviewed a few years ago on About.com.