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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If you like the Cusano 18 or the Cusano Corojo cigars as I do, then you have two guys to thank.

Two Guys Smoke Shop in New Hampshire.

The Fall issue of Smoke Magazine has a condensed version of the story. Michael Chiusano, the man who developed the Cusano line and branded it with an easier-to-spell-and-pronounce phonetic version of his family name explains, “I thought I was just going to make 50 boxes and send them to my customers in the investment business as sort of a thank you.” That’s not how it turned out, fortunately.

Michael, prior to creating one of the hottest cigar companies around, worked as a money manager for Shearson Lehman and later started his own investment firm. Cigars were a hobby and diversion for him, not a business. Then, on a trip to the Dominican Republic in 1995 to help set up financing for a sugar cane maufacturer, Chiusano was given a locally made cigar as a gift by a family member of the plantation owner. The tobacco for the cigar had been grown on spent sugar cane land, and processed in their own factory. Michael smoked the cigar a few days later and was amazed at how good the flavor and draw was.

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