Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar Insider newsletter just released a rating today on the Cusano 18 Paired Maduro Churchill. This is the cigar that I reviewed here at Cigar Envy last week. CA is the first of the major magazines to review it.

They rated the cigar at 89, and called it a best buy. It is their featured cigar, and received the highest rating of any reviewed in this issue — topping the CAO Cx2 and the Aurora 1495 among others.

Here are some excerpts from what they said, along with notes on their vertical review of other sizes in the Paired Maduro release:

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Summary:

The new Cusano 18 Paired Maduro Churchill is medium to medium-full bodied with a quiet power like you’ll find in some Cuban cigars. Creamy and refined, it is an extremely flavorful and balanced smoke. This cigar is very new, but has already won a place in my humidor. While quite good now, I believe that it has the potential to become great after a few months of humidor rest. Highly recommended, and a Best Buy at the price.

Background Information:

At 7 1/2 inches with a 50 ring gauge this cigar is slightly longer than a classic Churchill, slightly shorter than a classic Double Corona, and a little fatter than both. It is a full-flavored cigar with a double-cured Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper over a San Vicente Dominican Olor binder. The filler contains the same 18 year old Dominican Olor aged tobacco as the Cusano 18 Double Connecticut, blended with Dominican Piloto Cubano. In addition, the filler also contains Brazilian Mata Fina Maduro leaf. Manufactured by Tabacos Dominicanos S.A. and blended by master craftsman Hendrik Kelner, creator of Davidoff, AVO, Paul Garmirian and The Griffin’s cigars, at his Tabadom factory in the Dominican Republic for Cusano Cigars.

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This is a very sweet deal from JR Cigars on two five-pack samplers of two very good cigars. It is only good for a week.

But for one quarter of an inch, this deal wouldn’t exist. You’ll understand that better later on. Let’s talk about the cigars.

The TTT Trinidad Corona is rated an 87 by Cigar Aficionado. They said that it was “a well-made cigar with a dark, toothy wrapper. It has a smooth, easy draw. It’s woody, spicy and smooth, with a few harsh edges.”

This cigar has a best online price at the moment of $25.00 per sampler of 5 cigars at Atlantic Cigar. The next best price is at Mike’s Cigars for $36.00 for 5 . The suggested retail price on the sampler is $40.00, so the Atlantic price would ordinarily be quite good. And next week it will be good again if it is still priced that way. This special deal from JR beats it though.

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