Nub Corojo 460 Staff Review
Nub is one of the few cigars you could pick out if you were wearing a blindfold thanks to its unmistakably short, fat dimensions. Now you can smoke a spicy new incarnation called Nub Corojo, which gets my undivided attention in today’s staff review. The unconventional 4 by 60 shape I’m about to fire up may be an acquired taste for folks who like to stretch their jaws around a mouthful of cigar, but it’s become a staple in nearly every premium cigar shop.
Nub cigars come in four classic wrappers – Connecticut, Maduro, Cameroon, and Habano. With the debut of Nub Corojo, a fifth option joins the brand’s portfolio which is blended and handmade at the esteemed Oliva Cigars factory in Estelí, Nicaragua, where dozens of top-rated cigars, like Oliva Serie V Melanio and Oliva Serie V, are produced.
Decades ago, Daniel Maria Rodriguez was the tobacco farmer in Cuba responsible for growing, curing, and blending the world’s finest Corojo wrappers before Fidel Castro took control of the country, prompting the Rodriguez family to flee like many of Cuba’s great tobacco growers who had farmed their land for generations before the state confiscated it. However, when their exodus occurred, the seeds of Cuba’s legendary tobacco crops were smuggled out of the country with them and planted in a variety of Central American and Caribbean nations. That’s why you can count Nub Corojo among the best Corojo cigars you can smoke today, even though its tobaccos are Nicaraguan.
Nub Corojo cigars are clad in a bright-orange cigar band with the iconic Nub logo wrapped around the front. They’re packaged in blocky slide-top boxes of 20 cigars. The oily, mocha-brown Corojo wrapper on the 460 I’m inspecting conceals a plump concoction of premium Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos aged and assembled to the same standards for quality, construction, and consistency you would expect from other critically acclaimed cigars produced by Oliva.
I’m careful to check my cutter before slicing the cap on a Nub. It’s second nature to cut the cap quickly, but a 60 ring gauge cigar calls for a cutter with a wider aperture. You can crack the wrapper if you don’t cut a big ring cigar with the right tool, like a Xikar X8 Cutter. Once the cap is off, Nub cigars draw like a dream due to their extra girth, and Nub Corojo is no exception. Tangy notes of leather and paprika punctuate a few free-flowing cold puffs when I spin the cigar around in my mouth prior to lighting it.
Lighting a big ring cigar also requires a little more patience and finesse. It’s tempting to blast the entire foot of fat cigar by cranking your torch up to its maximum flame height, but that’s a mistake. You might light the cigar faster, but you’re unnecessarily infusing it with the taste of charred tobacco and butane. Take your time and toast the foot gently. Slowly rotate your cigar over the flame to ensure an even burn. Because Nub cigars are short, the smoke reaches your palate quickly, which exacerbates the negative impact of making your cigar too hot too fast.
Nub Cojoro is purely delicious, though. After full ignition is achieved, it’s easy to appreciate the nuances this cigar has to offer. Tasting notes of cedar and earth coat the palate in conjunction with hints of nuts and malted chocolate. Nub Corojo is zesty but not hot enough to ring your bell like a Red Savina Habanero. Plus, its intensity is kept in check by the cool draws a thicker shape produces. Despite being only four inches long, Nub cigars burn for a deceptively long time. It’s not uncommon to smoke a Nub 460 over the course of almost an hour if you pace yourself.
A nice sequence of red pepper, chestnuts, and cedar stimulates the palate while commanding plumes of smoke fill the room with an alluring aroma throughout the middle portion of Nub Corojo. It’s a complex smoke you can savor slowly. Personally, I enjoy Nub cigars most after I’ve achieved a sturdy and even ash that insulates the foot from burning too hot. This particular 460 shows off a high caliber of construction with a stable white-and-gray ash that’s barely flaked off since I began smoking.
By the time I peel off the band to explore the final stretch of Nub Corojo, the pepper pulses a bit more through the nose, but pleasantly lingering hints of pine and hickory add to the cigar’s intricate finish. Before this Nub is fully extinguished, it gets my stamp of approval with a respectable 91 points. Nub Corojo is just one more example of why short, fat cigars won’t fade away like a passing fad. Smoke a Nub Corojo now that they’re out, and read our staff reviews for Nub Connecticut, Nub Cameroon, Nub Maduro, and Nub Habano for a detailed look at the entire Nub portfolio from your pals at Holt’s.
