OneOff +53 Robusto

There’s a short list of cigars that I would describe as “your favorite cigar maker’s favorite cigars” from the 1990s. Most of them are cigars that went away after the cigar boom, though seemingly all have come back in various forms. Tony Borhani’s Bahia, the Perdomo-made CAO products, Zinos from Honduras, and Andrea Molinari’s OneOff. These are all cigars that many of the most-respected cigar makers of today talk about as cigars from the past that they miss.

Molinari owned a La Casa del Habano franchise in Italy and wanted to have his own cigars made in Cuba. Unfortunately, that was not possible, so he turned to Plasencia and created a brand called OneOff. Eventually, the brand was sold to Cuban Crafters before Dion Giolito of Illusione—a longtime fan of the brand—bought it in September 2017.

In 2018, Giolito unveiled his version of OneOff, offered in eight of the 16 sizes of the original brand. One of those sizes wore a secondary band and is described as having a slightly different recipe than the others, +53.

The +53 is a reference to the country code for Cuba that is needed to make a phone call to the island. It debuted in a 5 3/4 x 48 size called Super Robusto, but this year, Giolito added two new sizes: a 5 x 52 Robusto and a 6 x 56 Gordo.

Beyond the difference in blend recipe, the +53 cigars are also much more expensive than the regular OneOffs.

Of note, this is not the only Molinari-created brand within the Illusione portfolio. When Giolito bought the trademarks he also got Allegria—a brand Molinari launched in 2004, three years after OneOff—which Illusione relaunched earlier this year. The Illusione Allegria uses a different blend—centered around corojo 99 and criollo 98 tobaccos—that comes in at a more affordable price than OneOff.

• Cigar Reviewed: OneOff +53 Robusto
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: Agricola Ganadera Norteña S.A.
• Wrapper: Nicaragua
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Robusto
• MSRP: $30 (Box of 10, $300)
• Release Date: Aug. 8, 2022
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

Two of the OneOff +53 Robustos have fairly typical-looking appearances, but the one I photographed for this review has some of the most extreme mottling I’ve ever seen on a cigar, short of the Davidoff Year of the Tiger. The front panel of that cigar is largely discolored with darker spots. For whatever it’s worth, one of the other two cigars has a water spot slightly off from the center of the front-facing part of the wrapper. All three cigars are quite bumpy to the touch, something you can’t pick up from the photographs. The aroma from the wrapper is somewhat sweet and medium-plus with flavors of leather, raisin and cocoa. From the foot, I find a full aroma of sweet plums, caramel and coffee. Each of those sensations is wrapped up into a singular, dense flavor and it’s difficult for me to find much in the way of separation. I am pretty sure that if I spent an hour taking cold draws from the cigars I would end up with a list of 50 flavors. It seems that after every 2-3 cold draws, the flavors shift a bit, something that could be a result of my palate or the tobaccos themselves. The first few cold draws start with some tart plums, acidity and Parmesan rind. Eventually, there’s a somewhat foul artificial lemon flavor, then some cocoa. After taking about 10 cold draws, I notice that my lips have a mild amount of a wasabi-like white pepper burn on them.

Each of the +53 Robustos I smoke start remarkably similar. Cocoa leads things before burning wood and nuttiness enter the fray. Eventually, a generic cracker flavor emerges on the finish, which creates a temporary sensation that tastes as if raw peanuts were placed on a plain cracker, though eventually the peanuts take over the finish. For the first puff, I find the time the flavors interact with my palate to be fairly short, just around 15 seconds, though that changes after the third puff. About 10 minutes into the first cigar—the one with all the mottling—I find myself needing to touch up the cigar to help the burn, something that, fortunately, isn’t an issue on the other two cigars. Also on that cigar, I find a unique musky/burnt flavor that I can’t identify. It shows up less than a half of an inch into the cigar and disappears right around the one inch mark. For the most part, the flavor is led by nuttiness over some leather, and then soapy and mineral flavors. It’s medium-full, but also fragrant as the flavors can be delicate at times. The finish has nuttiness, creaminess, hay, lather and some cardamon. One cigar finishes completely different, with white pepper, creaminess and some unsweet vanilla. Retrohales have more of the soap flavor, a unique viscous hay flavor that reminds me of drinking fresh Yellow Rose IPA, and white pepper. The finish keeps the white pepper, now joined by lemon, pizza crust, yellow mustard and black pepper. All put together, flavor is full, body is medium-plus and strength is medium-plus. One cigar avoids any construction issues, one has the aforementioned burn issue and needs a second touch-up, and another cigar has a tight draw but no burn issues.

That hay flavor I mentioned earlier becomes a large part of the profile on two cigars. It’s a very unique and enjoyable flavor that I first recall finding in a glass of Yellow Rose IPA that was from a batch of beer that had been finished earlier that day. In the OneOff +53, I find that flavor can, at times, get unbalanced and sometimes it ends up too bitter or too sharp, but for the most part, I enjoy it. Other flavors include nuttiness, leather, melted butter and cardamom. The finish continues to be led by nuttiness over white pepper, yellow mustard, campfire flavors and a sharp caramel. Retrohales have red pepper, more of the melted butter flavor, peanuts, leather, cinnamon and red pepper, the latter of which really attacks my throat. At times, the retrohales are softer thanks to an uptick in both generic creaminess and the melted butter flavor, but a lot of times they are spicier than the main flavor. Retrohales finish with acidity, leather, melted butter and some of that sharp caramel flavor. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength is medium-plus. The first cigar continues to need regular touch-ups, the second cigar continues to have excellent construction, and the final cigar is still plagued by a tight draw and is now also needing help with touch-ups to help keep the smoke production levels up.

In each cigar, the profile seems to settle down a bit during the final third. The viscous hay flavor is no longer present which allows for nuttiness to take over, joined by some burnt ground beef, leather and white pepper. It finishes with nuttiness, black pepper, burnt espresso and some underlying creaminess that helps to tie everything together. Much more so than the main flavor, the retrohales are much softer. There’s a light nuttiness, softer creaminess, fondant sweetness and a touch of mineral flavors, but it’s much more delicate than where the cigar had been previously. The finish has nuttiness and some white pepper, but I really struggle to tell the difference between the retrohale and the finish. Flavor is barely full, body is full and strength is medium-plus. Construction is similar to where each cigar was in the second third: the first cigar needs help to keep it lit, the second cigar is great, the final cigar has both a tight draw and combustion issues.

Final Notes

• The Agricola Ganadera Norteña S.A. factory continues to be in a frustrating place for me. In 2015 and 2016 we named the factory—then called TABSA—our Factory of the Year. But the last year or two has felt like a very mixed bag, and to some degree, this cigar is a sort of microcosm of my feelings. On one hand, one of the three cigars I smoked was excellent; on the other hand, two of the cigars had consistent construction issues. I’ve smoked some great cigars from the factory in the last year and I’ve smoked some not great cigars from the factory in the last year. That’s going to happen when you smoke enough of anything, but the ratio of cigars without issues versus cigars with issues has gotten noticeably worse. It’s not 50/50, or close to 50/50, but this was a factory that once had very few misses.
• If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on this matter specifically, I explained them a lot more in an earlier review.
• Any time I mention something like this, it’s worth pointing out that these cigars I smoke create a rather skewed window into making this sort of inference. On one hand, very few people create detailed notes like a cigar reviewer; on the other hand, I am smoking very few cigars from the factory and mostly new cigars as opposed to recent production of existing lines.

• The first cigar I smoked also developed a weird burn where the ash went outwards, sort of like a flower blooming. This was not something I saw on the other two cigars.
• That cigar was the one that had consistent burn issues throughout. It felt like the cigar was struggling to burn in the center.
• The viscous hay flavor I mentioned was something that reminds me of a specific can—technically, I think it was a crowler—of Yellow Rose IPA from Lone Pint Brewery in Magnolia, Texas. At that time—eight years ago—Texas was not known for producing great IPAs but Yellow Rose was considered by many to be one of the better ones. I had drunk Yellow Rose before, but some friends stopped by our old office with some fresh Yellow Rose that they picked up from the brewery on the way to see us. That beer was unlike any other IPA I have ever had. It had this funky, thick, meaty hay flavor that coated the palate in an incredibly unique way. It remains one of my favorite glasses of beer I’ve ever drank and if you are ever around Lone Pint, I’d recommend stopping by to see if they have any Yellow Rose that is less than 48 hours old for you to drink.
• There is only one other cigar where I can recall tasting the flavor, the Dunhill Signed Range Selección Suprema, the final new Dunhill cigar made before the brand was shut down.
• I have not yet smoked Allegria, though Brooks Whittington recently reviewed the Lonsdale and it scored a 91.
• While you wouldn’t be able to tell by the photographs in this review, the two new OneOff sizes are the first of Illusione’s new packaging, something that will affect basically the entire portfolio. OneOff is keeping its bands, but the boxes have been updated with a new design; they are painted instead of being natural wood like the original packaging.
• I am very curious to see how Illusione’s new packaging will be received by consumers and retailers when it starts to arrive on shelves in earnest, something that should begin happening early next year. It is fairly rare to see a prominent brand do a branding makeover like this, both because it’s going to affect basically every cigar sold and because it’s also a pretty radical makeover in terms of the designs. There have been some more drawn-out makeovers like AGANORSA Leaf and PDR, and Davidoff did an AVO packaging change that was a bit more gradual in terms of the design development, but this might be the most notable packaging overhaul since Davidoff’s rebranding of Camacho in 2013.
• Beyond the time and money involved with an overhaul like this, I suspect the main reason why so few companies do this is because it’s a massive risk.
• One thing that consumers may not realize is that it’s not just a matter of putting new designs on cigar bands. There are a lot of retailer-specific concerns that are getting addressed as part of the overhaul. These include making the physical size of the boxes more shelf-friendly, standardizing the names of the vitolas across the lines and creating a better-flowing segmentation of the different brands within the larger portfolio.
• I do not know if this is part of Illusione’s reasoning, but another factor that oftentimes explains packaging changes is supply issues. There are many times when cigars are rolled but the companies are waiting on the cigar boxes. Sometimes companies will update the packaging mainly because they want to get a better supply of the packaging.
• Fortunately, the blends and sizes will remain the same and outside of some of the limited production Singularé sizes, I do not believe any cigars are being phased out.
• Illusione advertises on halfwheel.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time ranged between one hour and 45 minutes to two hours and 15 minutes.
• Site sponsor Atlantic Cigar Co. carries the OneOff +53 Robusto.