Firsat F52

Since returning to the cigar industry in an active role two years ago, Tim Ozgener has been on a pretty steady pace of releases.

Ozgener is the son of the late Cano A. Ozgener, the founder of CAO. Beyond being Cano’s son, Tim once served as the head of CAO, though the company was sold and, in 2010, absorbed into General Cigar Co. Once that happened, Ozgener stepped away from an active role in the cigar industry, though he was an investor in Crowned Heads, which distributes the cigars from his new company, OZ Family Cigars.

Each year has brought one new core line for his OZ Family Cigars, a new entry in the company’s annual limited edition series known as Pi Synesthesia, and some of the core lines are now getting extensions.

Ozgener has also consistently turned to his Turkish heritage for inspiration for the company’s first three core lines:

• Bosphorus references the Bosphorus Strait
• Aramas references Mount Ararat, a dormant volcano located near the borders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey
• Firsat is the Turkish word for “opportunity”

Blend-wise, Firsat uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut-seed wrapper over an Ecuadorian habano and Nicaraguan fillers. The cigars are made at Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr.’s Casa Carrillo factory in the Dominican Republic.

It’s offered in four vitolas:

• Firsat F52 (5 x 52) — $12.25 (Box of 20, $245)
• Firsat F54 (7 x 54) — $14 (Box of 20, $280)
• Firsat F55 (5 1/2 x 55) — $13.25 (Box of 20, $265)
• Firsat F60 (6 x 60) — $14.50 (Box of 20, $290)

In a rather unique circumstance, the company shipped three of the vitolas in June, while the F54 size didn’t begin shipping until September.

• Cigar Reviewed: Firsat F52
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Casa Carrillo
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Connecticut-seed)
• Binder: Ecuador (Habano)
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Shape: Pressed
• MSRP: $12.25 (Box of 20, $245)
• Release Date: June 2024
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

Before even having time to process what the cigar looks like, I’m struck by how light each cigar feels; more on that in the Final Notes section. Also, it quickly becomes apparent that the press on the cigars is very sharp, with near 90-degree angles at certain parts of the cigar. The aromas from the wrappers vary between medium-plus and medium-full; the first cigar is very pungent with lots of ammonia and some fruitier perfume smells, while the other two smell like the inside of the box of raisins with some oak and butterscotch underneath. Compared to the wrappers, each cigar’s foot has a much sweeter aroma. By the second cigar, it’s clear that the sweetness is a very sweet maple syrup over raisins, leather and some fruitiness, again between medium-plus and medium-full. Cold draws have much more variance than the aroma. The first cigar has an open resistance with leather and white pepper leading some Hi-C-like sweet fruitiness and peanut butter. The second cigar is not as sugary, though still quite sweet, with caramel, floral flavors and oak over some woodiness. The third cigar is the most balanced with brown sugar, leather, vermouth and pear; each flavor is nearly as strong as the others and combine to be medium-full.

Despite the fact that the first Firsat F52’s draw is clearly the worst, I think that particular cigar delivers the best start. It’s thick and rich with nuttiness beating out to a cucumber flavor before woodiness and sweet creaminess emerge. The second cigar is led by some of the maple syrup, but it’s not as sweet as the cold draw was. Instead, there are red fruits, bark and damp soil before a sweet rum finish takes over. The third cigar still has the smoothness and richness, but it lacks the sweetness of the other two. Leather, saltiness, white pepper and earth produce a very dry start before cashews kick in during the finish. Regardless of the flavors or the draws, flavor intensity is around medium-full. Those starts serve as a guide for what the first third of each cigar is like: the first one has a thicker profile with lots of nuttiness, the second cigar is the sweetest of the bunch, and the third is the most obvious outlier thanks to its dryness. There are not many individual flavors that function similarly when comparing two of the three cigars, let alone the entire trio. The most noticeable difference among the trio is that the first cigar lacks any and all pepper burn, contributing to a much smoother experience. The second cigar has just a small amount of black pepper, though it’s overwhelmed by the aforementioned sweetness and the secondary notes of leather and earthiness. The third cigar is my least favorite of the bunch as the dryness brings the other flavors down, though I do get a nice whiskey barrel flavor. Retrohales are different, albeit not all that interesting, save for the third cigar, which has pine, popcorn and some brown mustard before finishing with its normal dryness. Despite the inconsistency with the individual flavors, the intensity levels of each cigar are similar: flavor is generally full, body is medium-plus, and strength is mild-medium. Construction is not terrible, but could be better. The first cigar’s draw is open, albeit seemingly not causing any combustion or flavor issues, and I need to make a touch-up on the third cigar to help with a very uneven burn.

While the second thirds of each of the Firsat F52 are quite different from one another, there’s one central theme: intensifying. The first cigar sees the nuttiness get thicker, the second cigar gets very salty, and the third cigar gets toasty. While neither the second or third cigars have the same sort of nuttiness as the first cigar, it’s present in all three cigars. Oak and leather are also present on all three cigars, though there are clear differences. For example, I find some grape sweetness in the first cigar but none of that flavor in the third cigar. Each cigar tends to have a unique attribute that makes it different than the other two, the most notable being the first cigar continues to have zero signs of any pepper. In contrast, the second cigar is able to deliver some sweeter and seemingly more complex flavors, including a nice clove note for about 10 minutes of the middle portion. The third cigar continues to get toastier, with some burnt charcoal flavors separating themselves from what’s otherwise a generic toasty cigar sensation. Retrohales are more consistent between the three cigars, with nuttiness leading earthiness, creaminess and leather, though the final two cigars have varying amounts of white and black pepper. As the finish of the first cigar develops, some woodiness adds itself in and then I get a flavor that reminds me of grilled asparagus, mild but rather distinct. The other two are more predictable: nuttiness gives way to creepiness, leather and some caramel sweetness. Flavor is full, body is just over medium, and strength remains relatively non-existent. The first cigar—the one with the open draw—continues to burn well, though I find the smoke production of the second cigar to be waning and a couple of touch-ups are needed.

While the first Firsat F52 is in a pretty similar place as before, the second cigar takes a pretty dramatic shift. It’s much calmer and adds some subtle peach and grape sweetness underneath what is now a bread-forward core that has replaced the nuttiness. There’s some mild bitterness and a touch of pepper. The final cigar has flavors that seem more like what I would have expected from the second cigar: nuttiness, toastiness and leather over some sweetness and sharpness. As the cigars are burning down, the flavor profile is getting increasingly hollow. There’s lots of flavor development just as the smoke hits the mouth and into the finish, but little action in the three or four seconds in between. During its finish, the nuttiness returns to the second cigar, though it’s still behind the bread and saltiness with creaminess and starchiness behind that. The third cigar has a bizarre finish that tastes like I burnt my mouth and then consumed a lot of peanuts. Retrohales are all over the place: the first cigar sees the richness pick up, though not really combating the hollow aspect of the profile, whereas the second cigar adds a floral flavor that ends up muting much of what’s left, and then there’s the third cigar, which now has lots of creaminess. Flavor is full, body is medium and strength is mild. The cigars are able to be smoked down beyond my normal one-inch stopping point, though each cigar’s draw becomes quite loose in the process, albeit not something I’d deduct a point for. The second cigar continues to have combustion issues, though the other two Firsats are able to get through the final third without any construction deductions.

Final Notes

• There seems to be an uptick in blends that use Ecuadorian wrappers and binders. Given that a lot of binder tobacco starts as wrapper tobacco but was reclassified due to visual imperfections, I’ve always thought it was strange that more cigars don’t have Ecuadorian binders.
• I don’t have the best memory when it comes to reviews, but it’s been a long time since I’ve written a review with the three cigars that tasted as differently as these three did. The cigars didn’t share any common leading flavors, and there were few moments when my notes aligned between just two of the cigars, let alone the three.
• As such, this review has less detail than most. It would be far too lengthy to try to list out the various secondary notes of each section of the review, as the cigars were all different.
• In terms of similarities, there was extreme consistency in intensities: the flavor was full, the body was medium and the strength was non-existent. I found the three cigars to have an abnormally rich profile compared to most cigars I review.
• It’s easy to discard the three bands without much thought, but if you look at the sides and backs, you’ll notice that the artwork is more like that of a painting, something that isn’t regularly found in new cigars these days.
• Yes, it’s three bands; the top two bands are different pieces of paper. Increasingly, manufacturers are creating one large band that looks like two separate pieces. I suspect this is because it cuts down on labor costs of applying the band, though perhaps there are some other savings to be had as well.

• The cigars are listed at 5 x 52. The above is what I found when I weighed and measured the three cigars for this review. As noted above, these cigars felt light in the hand. Given that we’ve been weighing and measuring cigars for the last two years, I’m now able to look back at our data and see that my feelings were confirmed: these are lighter than most of the similarly-sized cigars we’ve weighed over the years. Amongst these three reviews—one, two, three—of cigars from different factories, you can see that only one of the nine cigars weighed below 12 grams and most were over 13 grams.
• Granted, some manufacturers are known to remove some of the fillers to help with the box-pressing process, but I don’t think that’s the full explanation of what’s going on with this cigar.
• Final smoking time was just over 90 minutes.
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