Pinar Del Río BOTL.org Small Batch 2010

Today is another one of our Monday morning traditions at halfwheel, redux reviews. For more info about redux reviews and all of other review types, click here. Today’s redux review is of a cigar I reviewed way back in 2010, the Pinar Del Río “Brother of the Leaf” (BOTL) Small Batch 2010. While I had a box of these, I have not smoked one since the first review, most of the ones I had I either gifted out or traded away.

I wrote this back in September of 2009:

Basically, this was a very good cigar, with plenty of great flavors, but that overwhelming Leather note definitely took away a bit from my overall enjoyment. However, there is no doubt in my mind that these cigars will get better (and perhaps quite a bit better) with a little age (say, 4-8 months) and some time to meld just a bit more. Having said that, I enjoyed smoking it quite a bit, and honestly, this is (and will be) one of the best bargains in cigars, with a price of just over $6 each.

• Cigar Reviewed: Pinar Del Río “Brother of the Leaf” (BOTL) Small Batch 2010
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Tabacalera Don Leoncio
• Wrapper: Brasil Bahía
• Binder: Criollo 98 Dominican Republic
• Filler: Corojo Nicaragua & Habano Dominican Republic
• Size: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 46
• Vitola: Corona Gorda
  
• MSRP: $6.25 (Boxes of 20, $125.00)
• Release Date: July 2010
• Number of Cigars Released: 200 Boxes of 20 Cigars (4,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked for Redux: 1

Like the first sample for the first review, the Pinar Del Río “Brother of the Leaf” (BOTL) Small Batch 2010 is quite attractive with a dark brown wrapper that smells of espresso, leather and pepper. There is quite a bit less oil on the wrapper than I remember and the box press that I mentioned in the first review seems to have gotten more pronounced. It is hard when squeezed, but has some give to it.

As soon as I light up the cigar, I am almost assaulted with flavors: sweet cedar, creamy leather and even a little bit of honey. There is a nice black pepper on the retrohale and just a tad bit of spice on the lips. It is not the most complex profile in the world and does not change much over the length of the cigar, but the flavors it has are distinct and play extremely well off of one another.

While the draw starts out a bit loose, by the end of the first third it has firmed up nicely. The construction is excellent with a great burn line and a huge amount of smoke production.

Brooks Whittington

I have worn many hats in my life up to this point: I started out as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then transitioned to photographing weddings—both internationally and in the U.S.—for more than a decade. After realizing that there was a need for a cigar website containing better photographs and more in-depth information about each release, I founded my first cigar blog, SmokingStogie, in 2008. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars, and it was one of the predecessors to halfwheel, which I co-founded.