Cain Maduro

The Legend of Cain

The recently released Cain cigars are the newest creation from Oliva and  Sam Leccia, the man behind the popular Nub cigars.  These cigars are “straight ligero”, made up of a blend of Nicaraguan ligeros from farms in Esteli, Condega and the Jalapa Valley.  Available in a Habano and a Maduro wrapper in torpedo, robusto and toro sizes.   Also available is the Cain F, touted as a “Cain on steroids” and blended with a higher percentage of Esteli ligeros, the strongest of the three.  The regular (is it safe to call a straight ligero cigar “regular”?) is known to be powerful, I’m scared of what the Cain F might do.

In order to bring out the smoother flavors of these tobaccos and tame the ‘edge’ of the ligeros they are triple fermented.  This is a time consuming process and is done totally by hand, where the tobacco leaves are stacked in piles and rotated once they reach the proper temperatures.  It’s imperative to rotate the leaves at the proper time, if the temperatures get too high the leaves will be ruined and not suitable for cigar making.

The Stats

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a pre-release Cain, courtesy of DBCcigar.  Dave was gifted the cigar by one of the owners at La Casa del Tabaco here in Atlanta (Buckhead), but he knew it was on my ‘must try’ list so he was nice enough to gift it to me, thanks Dave!

Cain Maduro Torpedo
Size: 5 1/2″ x 54 (the production size on the torpedo is 6″ x 52)
Wrapper: Maduro
Filler: Nicaraguan Ligero blend
Binder: Nicaraguan
Beverage: Jack and Coke
Price: ~$7.25 retail (although this one was gifted)

Let’s Smoke It!

My Cain Maduro had a very dark, oily and extremely toothy wrapper on it.   There were a couple of medium size veins on this one and a small crack near the cap, although the crack did open up more as I smoked the cigar it never affected the smoking quality of the stick.  The construction was very solid and the cigar was quite firm.  The cold draw had a good amount of resistance but still had a nice draw.  Cold aroma on this cigar was of peaty earth at the foot and along the body of the cigar.

The cap cut quite easily and after a little toasting and the cigar lit evenly with no problem at all.  Initial draw on the Cain produced flavors of earth and unsweetened cocoa then moved into chocolate and leather.  Although I normally break my reviews into thirds I don’t feel the need to with the Cain Maduro – the flavors, draw and burn quality remained consistent throughout the entire cigar.

I noticed that the Cain produced very little resting smoke and when taking a draw on it the smoke was quite heavy and tended to linger for a while before laboriously drifting away.  I took my sweet time with this straight ligero monster, I’ve been on the receiving end of a Nic Kicking and tried to plan my smoke so I didn’t get laid out by this one.  The cigar lends itself well to a long, leisurely smoke and required no touch ups or relights in the well over two hours it took me to smoke it.

If you have a chance to try the Cain you should.  It offers a great flavor profile and a really great smoking experinece thanks to the excellent craftsmanship of the cigar.  I enjoyed the Maduro and look forward to trying the Habano, I’ve even got a Cain F, for when I’m feeling really brave.