Casa Magna Colorado Robusto
Manuel Quesada has been making cigars since 1974. His original cigars were mild bodied, most of them a blend of Dominican filler and binder tobaccos cloaked with light Connecticut-seed wrappers. His latest endeavors are bolder, more vibrant smokes.
The Casa Magna is his greatest innovation. He joined forces with Nicaragua’s largest grower of cigar tobacco, Nestor Plasencia, and created this blend in Plasencia’s Segovia Cigar factory. The line of five cigars saw first light in the summer at an industry trade show and the entire brand was initially reviewed in the August 26 Cigar Insider.
Standing above the other sizes was the robusto, a stubby cigar with a bold heart of Cuban-seed tobacco, all of it grown in two very different regions of Nicaragua: tobacco from Estelí (the area where most Nicaraguan cigars are produced) tends to be strong, while that grown in Jalapa, to the north, is typically more balanced and elegant. Together they combine to create a full-flavored cigar, full of rich coffee notes and balanced by a cedary sweetness with a hint of raisins.
Best of all is the price: at only $5.25, this superb smoke is less expensive than all but one cigar on this list (No. 23, which is a nickel cheaper.) The word “Colorado” in the brand name refers to the dark, slightly reddish hue of the wrapper, and is a hint that Quesada will expand this line to more styles. It will be hard to improve upon this.