The Oscar Valladares Maduro Toro 6x52
Origin: Danli Hondura
Strength: Medium
Body: medium to full flavored
Wrapper: Mexican San Andreas
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Honduras and Nicaragua
Special Packaging Notes: Box shaped like a cigar mold press and each cigar has candela leaf wrapping from the foot halfway up.
At first start you look at the packaging and aside from the box packaging you look at the cigar and the first thing you notice is the band. This band is a rendition of The Leaf by Oscar Habano, which is also an incredible smoke, but it doesn’t say Habano, it just has Oscars Name on it, with the sea foam green and gold lined cigar band architecture it aside from looking directly at the band, or an expert in color shades of wrapper it could be easily overlooked or misleading. The makeup of this cigar is also different from the Habano. While the Habano version has a Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, the maduro counterpart uses a Mexican San Andreas wrapper.
The Leaf by Oscar Maduro is produced by Oscar Villadares Tobacco and Company in Danli, Honduras
Behind the blends are Master Blender Byra Duarte, Jim “Island Jim” Robinson, and Oscar Valladares. Oscar used to be a quality control manager for Rocky Patel, and Island Jim started his career in the hospitality industry as an suit. Sometime after he left the cigar industry he opened a restaurant next to a cigar shop. Ocassionaly he would head over next door to do his paperwork and smoke a cigar; a much needed break from the daily grind of restaurant business. One day he was at the cigar shop and the owner mentioned if he loved cigars so much he should open his own cigar store. So that’s exactly what he did, he started Leaf and Bean about 17 years ago in his hometown of Pittsburg (go Steelers) and in 2012 hired Oscar to make a house blend just for him. So Oscar developed Leaf by Oscar and Island Jim took the first blend at face value and chose it. He had distribution problems getting the product into the states and was only importing to his store exclusively at first. Island Jim had no idea the potential this cigar had. Cigar stores and shop owners were beggin him to sell it to them wholesale, but Jim decided not to. Then after about the 20th phone call he finally started to recognize the potential. Since Jim wasn’t sure how many he would need he started out his first order 5k cigars. Oscar thought that was a little thin for a cigar shop, but then again Jim was in unfamiliar territory and didn’t want the hassle of dealing with a broker. Every order Jim placed with Oscar was sold out within days, a month at the most. After a while he decided to go wholesale and Oscar and Jim decided to call it Leaf instead of keeping it a house blend. In less than 2 years after he went wholesale and now this brand was being sold in over 800 shops nationwide. A monumental triumph to the success of hard work and dedication to his craft.
Since this cigar has the Mexican wrapper you get a little spice, but overtones of sweetness, earth, roasted peanuts and almost a barn wood character towards the finish. This cigar is full flavored, but not full strength. It is an easy smoke, but has a bold presence to let you know this cigar means business. You can tell this tobacco has been aged properly and produces a hefty amount of smoke. Price point is usually under 12 dollars but i say who cares. In my opinion it is worth every penny. If you can find a box, splurge. The Leaf By Oscar Maduro toro, you won’t be disappointed.