Introduced in 2003, the Chisel is one of the innovative vitolas to ever hit the cigar scene. The story goes that Litto Gomez was driving into work one day, and as he was chewing on a Pyramid shaped cigar, he suddenly realized that the shape that resulted from his chewing felt extremely good in his mouth. From a Cigar Aficionado article, his quote says the rest:

“This way it goes into the mouth in a perfect way, very comfortable. I think it even fits better than a torpedo or a pyramid. It also allows you to smoke a big ring gauge cigar without filling your mouth.”

Whatever the reason, I can attest to the fact that the Chisel is one of the best feeling cigars I have ever smoked in my mouth. It’s easy to draw, easy to keep in your mouth and great to look at.

The regular Chisel stick from Gomez sports a Dominican Wrapper, but rumors say that for every 200 boxes of regular wrapped cigars he makes Litto rolls a box of the same cigar with an Oscuro wrapper (“Oscuro” in Spanish is usually translated into English as “dark”), and sends it to a random store. Nobody can request them;apparently they just show up. This makes them fairly hard to get a hold of, so when I had a BOTL email me and offer a trade, I took him up on it.

Enough background, lets get to it, shall we?

• Cigar Reviewed: Litto Gomez Diez Chisel Puro Oscuro
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Tabacalera La Flor S.A.
• Wrapper: Dominican Oscuro
• Binder: Dominican Republic
• Filler: Dominican Republic
• Size: 5 1/2 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 54
• Shape: Chisel
• Est. Price: $12.00 (Boxes of 24, $288.00)
• Date Released: 2003

The wrapper on the Litto Gomez Chisel Puro Oscuro is a fairly motley and smooth medium brown color with a bit of oil. It is a spongy stick when squeezed but also very dense, and smells of tobacco and a bit of oak. Honestly, considering the name, I expected the wrapper to be noticeably darker then a normal Chisel, but that is really just not the case. In fact, if you put the two side by side, it is fairly difficult to even tell them apart.

(regular Chisel on the left, Oscuro Chisel on the right)

It lit up very well, and the the first thing I noticed was that it started out extremely mildly. No pepper or spice, or anything of the like. In fact, the first third had very little flavor at all, other then a mild sweet woodish (oak-ish) taste.

The second third was quite a bit like the first. A bit of pepper came through, but the dominant flavors were still (sweet) oak and a touch of cinnamon. Also of note was the fact that the cigar started to canoe heavily at this point, forcing me to fix it.

The last third was pretty much like the first two. A little pepper (perhaps a bit more then the first two thirds), cinnamon and oak. It did not get hot at the end, and I was able to nub it.

Final Notes:

• People have different ways of cutting a Chisel, and while I have found it best to punch a hole through the flat end (all the way through), I did not have a punch with me, so I just cut off the tip of the chisel, and it worked quite well. Another popular way to open up the end is to gently squeeze the tip, cracking the cap open.
• I have smoked quite a few of the regular production Chisel Puros, and they are a fairly medium smoke in terms of strength.  I honestly expected the Oscuro wrapper to bump up the strength a bit, but was disappointed when that did not happen; sweeter, yes, but not stronger.
• As I mentioned before, this is the best feeling stick I have ever had in my mouth. I really wish more companies would release them, if they can.
• While the draw on this stick was great, the burn was VERY uneven, and I had a hard time keeping it lit, as it went out 6 times during the smoke and canoed on me once.
• This was a VERY slow burning stick, perhaps made slow because of all of the re-lights I had to do.
• The final Smoking time on this stick was 2 hours 5 Minutes.

The Bottom Line: First and foremost, this is NOT the most complex stick you will ever smoke, not by a longshot. The flavors were nice, but they did not really change for most of the smoke, and by the last third, I was bored out of my skull. While the lack of strength was a disappointment, especially considering the wrapper, I was hoping the flavors would make up for it, and was sorely disappointed. The burn issues did not help the overall smoking experience either. It was an ok smoke, but definitely not one I am going to go looking for again, and not one that will even come close to my normal rotation.

Final Score: 82