The newest release under the Camacho Master-Built Series is the Camacho Powerband, The cigar is described as an intense, adrenaline-fueled cigar experience inspired by the power, performance and acceleration associated with a classic V-twin engine, built to galvanize a brotherhood of freedom seekers.
Camacho was nice enough to send some samples along for review and this one has been aging inside my humidor for a couple of weeks. In fact, until Dylan Austin reached out to me the other night on Facebook I thought I smoked all the samples I received and forgot to review it. Thankfully, that was not the case.
Cigar Review: Camacho Powerband
Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
Factory: O.K. Cigars
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano 2000
Binder: Mexican San Andres
Filler: Nicaragua Corojo Ligero, Honduran Corojo Ligero, Dominican San Vincente Ligero, Dominican San Vincente, Dominican Piloto Cubano
Length: 6″
Ring Gauge: 60
Vitola: Gordo
The Look: The cigar comes packaged in boxes that are uniform with the rest of the Camacho series since the rebranding took effect. Like the band, the boxes have colors of charcoal and primer gray. Speaking of the band, it is similar to the ABA in design. The cigar features a wrapper with a chocolate hue and a few veins. The foot of the cigar stands out as it has lost its shape from being slightly under-filled.
The Burn: Once the cap is clipped the cold draw of the Powerband offers up a subtle cinnamon notes like the aroma of red hot candies. Once the cinnamon subsides there are notes that remind me of fresh cut grass on a rainy morning. The latter is amplified on the aroma from the foot of the Camacho Powerband.
Before I get into the toast and light, I wonder how many people like me own multiple lighters. I tend to use 1-2 jets for small ring gauges and 3-4 jets for larger ring gauges. How about you? Once the cigar is toasted and lit, the initial taste is cedar and it grows in intensity as we smoke through the first third. Also joining the mix are coffee with a faint hint of cocoa that was more dominant in the smaller ring gauge versions of the cigar. On the retrohale there is a nice amount of spice that borders on red pepper.
In the second third, the red pepper grow in intensity as the cedar notes begin to subside considerably. Around the halfway point the notes of coffee become dominant with red pepper and a subtle cocoa. On the retrohale the notes of cedar hang on with continued red pepper through the nose.
As the Camacho Powerband comes to a close the cocoa notes become a little more prevalent, but the cigar is all about the cedar, coffee and red pepper with a moderate finish and spicy retrohale.
The Burn: The first third of the cigar saw a very flaky ash, but as we smoked the cigar the ash became more firm. Regardless, the light colored ash held on for about a third at a time. The draw of the Camacho Powerband was fine tuned and while the burn was slightly wavy I never needed to touch up the cigar. In addition to providing a lot of smoke, I never needed to relight the cigar as it continued burning until I put it down just shy of 2 hours from the initial light.
The Finish: Following the redesign of Camacho the company released the Camacho Ecuador and American Barrel Aged that I enjoyed immensely. The Camacho Powerband is enjoyable and seems to me more of a throwback to the existing Camacho lines from before the packaging and design changes. It’s enjoyable but it wouldn’t fall in my top 3 Camacho cigars. I do however enjoy it enough to keep a 5 pack on hand in my humidor.
Score: 89
Price: $13.00
Camacho Powerband
Camacho Powerband Foot
Camacho Powerband Burn
