Stallone Cigars popped up on my radar in July of last year while looking for guests to have on the DR Thursday Night Virtual Herfs. Even though I didn’t know Stallone Cigars thankfully, through our network of members, we know Todd Vance. Todd had just been appointed the North American Vice President for Stallone and he was asked to be on the show. As it turns out Stallone was started back in 2014 by Tony Barrios and was being distributed in Europe and South America but was being released to the US in 08/20. After spending a couple of hours chatting with him and Tony I decided I should pick up a variety of their cigars and see what I thought. For this first review I started with the Stallone Castano toro.

The Castano has a dark brown look which makes sense as the name Castano translates to chestnut and this matches the wrapper’s color. It is a soft box press and feels firm in the hands and doesn’t have that lose kind of pillow feeling a lot of box pressed cigars can have. The seams are tight, there is some light veining and a slight bit of tooth. From both the body and foot there are light odors of earth, hay and fruit. Construction remains intact after cutting the double cap. The pre-light draw is easy draw with flavors of sweet tobacco and fresh baked bread.

In the first third I get the taste of bitter dark chocolate and pepper but shortly after lighting the spice diminishes and becomes more creamy. There is a medium resistance on the draw, with a good burn line and offers a light weighted smoke that fills the room.

Moving into the second third the flavor is mellow, creamy, a touch sweet while having some grass notes on the retrohale. The burn remains sharp and the ash hold tight until knocked off.

For the final third the spices return along with a charred wood flavor making for and enjoyable finale to the cigar. The burn never required touch ups during the smoke and construction held up until I put the cigar out as a nub.

I found the Castano to be a more mild/medium cigar vs the listed medium/full but of course everybody’s palate is different. Now this doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I found this to be a pleasant cigar to smoke and think it would be a very approachable cigar to smokers of any variety. Easily could be paired with most anything but suggest coffee, black tea or a peaty scotch. I picked up a few of each of the Stallone blends and look forward to trying each.

Wrapper – San Andres 

Binder – Nicaraguan

Filler – Nicaraguan

Price: $6.80 – $10.25 depending on vitola

Website: https://www.stallonecigars.com

Rating: 4.1 out of 5 pints