Crémo Grandeur (Prerelease)

Crémo Cigars is pivoting. After a few years on the market with a revitalized name and production out of Miami’s El Titan de Bronze, Crémo is moving to being more small-batch focused. Going forward, the Crémo Classic will be the company’s only regular production line while the rest of its portfolio will be limited editions.

The first two will be Grandeur and Clutch City, due in October and November respectively. 

Grandeur is a single-size 6 x 52 toro, wrapped in an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper with fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. It’s limited to 1,000 boxes of 10 with shipping expected before the end of October.

• Cigar Reviewed: Crémo Grandeur
• Country of Origin: U.S.A.
• Factory: El Titan de Bronze
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut
• Binder: n/a
• Filler: Dominican Republic & Nicaragua
• Size: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Toro
• MSRP: $12 (Boxes of 10, $120)
• Release Date: October 2014
• Number of Cigars Released: 1,000 Boxes of 10 Cigars (10,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

Even without any confirmation from the company, it’s pretty easy to identify the Grandeur’s wrapper as Ecuadorian Connecticut. It’s a nice golden shade with a fair bit of sheen and smells of barnyard, nuts and salty earth. From the foot, it’s quite different with cedar, a completely out of place strawberry note, and some dry vanilla. Things from the cold draw are equally as unique as the Crémo delivers a chalky vegetal note, a green bell pepper flavor in the back of the mouth and some generic sweetness. 

It takes a few puffs to get going, but once the smoke hits the palate there’s generic toasty notes, faint lemons, nuts and a common cedar. The draw of the Crémo is quite open, which probably helps to explain the below average smoke production. In many ways, there’s typical Connecticut flavors—sweet cedar and a touch of creaminess, but it’s joined by a less than ideal vegetal flavor. Fortunately, the draw loosens slightly, which allows for the smoke production to explode. I’d peg body and strength around medium, unfortunately, it’s quite mild flavor-wise.

Despite dropping within the first inch, the ash is holding on nicely, particularly in the second third. Flavor-wise, the Crémo Grandeur has seen its vegetal flavor depart, placed by a coffee note, generic woods and hints of floral. Unfortunately, the flavor seems even milder than it was in the first third, which creates for an odd balance given the medium strength and body.

The draw once again opens up on all three samples I smoked, but it brings with it a great woody and bourbon-like flavor in the mouth. It extends on the finish, perhaps even more detailed, while orange peel, woodiness and a touch of red pepper can be found on the retrohale. It’s a very good end to what had been a very mild and relatively pedestrian profile, but it’s still pretty mild. 

Final Notes

• Up until this review, there was essentially no information available on the Crémo Grandeur. Bryan Glynn did a review indicating the cigar was going to be under $10, I’m not sure what’s changed in the last month, but given the conversation I had with Walter Santiago of Crémo Cigars, that does not appear to be the case.
• Some part of me commends Crémo for making a new mild cigar. There are few doing it and it’s a completely underutilized part of the market.
• The bands for this release are not only more detailed, but also seem slightly thicker in paper quality.
• The cigar feels a lot larger in the mouth than the 52 ring gauge would imply.
• It’s interesting to listen to Santiago describing the future plans for his company, it sounds much like what Viaje once was. 
• Cigars for this review were sent to halfwheel by Crémo Cigars.
• Final smoking time was one hour and 40 minutes.