.
In my experience, CAO released a number of excellent cigars that soon went south in quality and flavor in a big way.
Then the family sold out to a huge cigar conglomerate. I'll leave it to you to guess which way overall quality went after that.
Look to other brands. I would suggest some of these:
1. AJ Fernandez (great to start, and most become even better with years of age)
2. Espinosa's 601 line (blue, green and red are all great) and some of his other lines
3. Padron
4. Perdomo (try a Champagne or a Perdomo Habano Connecticut sometime, for example)
5. Southern Draw which is actually made by AJ Fernandez (don't pay the normal $7-10 each price, they can be had for $3.50 each or less if you're patient, wait for a great sale and then stack promo codes on top of it)
6. Oliva V and V maduro
7. Certain Oliva house brands (notably some exclusive to the "very well-known" cigar retailer)
8. Even Rocky Patel who has a lot of crap has a couple of good lines currently (Super Ligero and Sun Grown Maduro, although it's hard to say if their quality will stay high or eventually deteriorate in future production runs).
9. Some Room101 stuff like the excellent Chief Cool Arrow (although nearly impossible to find now).
10. Some CI house lines that are budget-friendly and actually pretty good for their low price like certain Diesel, Man O' War and Nica Libre variants, which tend to improve greatly with age, I've noticed. Many other CI house lines are pretty crappy though, so beware.
11. Don Pepin Garcia, almost everything he makes is great.
12. Fuente and Ashton (which are made by Fuente) are loved by many, although my palate doesn't like them and I can't personally recommend them. You should try them though!
There are a number of others I'm forgetting, but there ya go, it's a good starter list.
CAO though, personally I'd just stay away. Too much better stuff can be had at the same or lower prices.
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Edited by user
6 years ago |
Reason: Not specified
