Cigar Review: NUb Habano 460

Hey all, the Cigar Czar here to talk about the NUb Habano 460. I recently learned about this company and a little history behind them. Sam Leccia started his career originally as an alcohol entrepreneur, working with big names as Jack Daniels and Bacardi, even being a partner in a successful, award winning vodka. He had been a long time cigar smoker and after a trip to Honduras and touring a cigar factory, he was amazed at the dedication and manpower needed to produce some of our favorite relaxing cigars. He decided it was something he wanted to be involved in. Working for the Oliva family as a sales rep, he was able to prove his new product idea was worth investing and the Oliva Family was on board. The idea was to create the complex and matured flavors of cigar, without the wait of smoking halfway through the stick. The end result was the larger ring gauge, shorter cigar dubbed the NUb. NUbs come with four wrappers being Habano, Connecticut, Cameroon and their newly released Maduro.

I picked the NUb Habano 460. Construction of this cigar was very nice. The wrapper is a Cuban seed leaf that is an even brown that only shows the occasional deep vein, otherwise providing an even and smooth wrap. The larger ring gauge was almost tricky for my guillotine cutter, but managed to cut with no incident and no debris. The draw was fantastic and the roll was packed just the right amount! As it burned it would start even, and as it hit the deeper veins in the wrapper would smoke really uneven, almost as far as an inch and a half, which on this cigar is a lot of real estate, but would almost immediately correct itself within a few puffs. I also noticed that this cigar when burning idly, would produce a blue smoke very similar to a cigarettes smoke. Living up to the hype on their website nubcigar.com, the ash on this is amazing. Even with a negligent bump causing some ash to come lose after smoking, this ash clung like a bad hangnail all the way to the nub! Although as it burned the ash would start out very white, but about an inch later would turn a tannish color. Both the blue smoke and the tanned ash led me to wonder if their was any chemical enhancement to the tobacco, which was not alleviated by their website. The only thing I was able to find was the wrappers. I had to find the binder and filler through a fellow reviewer, The Smoking Hot Cigar Chick at smokinghotcigarchick.com, the binder and long filler are Nicaraguan.

The flavor the was something that really intrigued me. Upon lighting I found that it was very chocolaty and then deepened through the first inch as a very dark chocolate flavor which combined with a bit of cedar and nut, puffing into the halfway mark the flavor started to become salty, and somewhat peaty like that of good aged Scotch, and as I smoked, removing the label as to smoke into the nub, the salty and peaty flavor become almost creamy, to the point that it almost seemed creamy on your tongue. I found this to be fantastic and really quite enjoyable! Were I to pair this with a beverage I would definitely recommend something of the Scotch variety, I am usually a fan of the 15 Year French Oak from Glenlivet, or a 12 year Double Wood from Belvenie.