Cigar Asylum Cigar Forum - CAO Bratalia--Cigar Tourney Review #5

Here we go with another review from the tourney, the #5 seed.

CAO Bratalia
Perfecto
Wrapper: Combo Italia and Brazilia

Here is the dark beauty...
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t.../bratalia1.jpg

Cigar is very dark in appearance with the alternating Italia/Brazilia wrappers. The pre light aroma is a nice sweet tobacco. Wrapper is not the prettiest wrapper. Very rough, and looks "off" in spots. The pre light draw is firm with a nice molassess flavor.

5 minute pic...
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t.../bratalia2.jpg
It lit easily and has continued that molasses flavor through the first 5 minutes. Nice spicy aroma coming off...so far so good. The burn started a little off, but seems to be straightening out. A little bit of tea flavor is coming through. The ash is medium gray and loose/flaky. Fell off when I picked it up to take the above pic. Nice amount of smoke. The foot has started to split. It's acting like a DPG Cuban Classic.

20 minutes in...
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t.../bratalia3.jpg
The flavor is definitely that Italia twang. I think the Brazilia's contribution is that sweet molassess flavor. It's very nice. About 15 mminutes in, a little espresso cane through. It's very light though. Smoke has picked up a bit and the ash is still loose and flaky. The wrapper continues to split, but not bad enough to create too many problems.

40 minutes in...
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t.../bratalia4.jpg
Burn is still pretty erratic. Touched it up twice so far. The flavor is a bit muted now. Still a little molassess, but now a little leather is coming through. Has a nice light spice through the nose. Sweet aroma coming off.

We have a runner!! At one hour in, the burn snaked up the Brazilia wrapper up one side of the stick. Touched up. The flavor has been pretty consistent throughout. The ash is still a flaky mess, but the draw has been good all the way.

Let it die after another 11 minutes...
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t.../bratalia5.jpg
The crakced wrapper came from fixing the runner.
The flavor started out, but mellowed out as it went on. Caught a few different tastes, but nothing came on very strong. Pretty typical for a CAO. Could definitely identify the Italia and the Brazilia flavor profiles in this stick though. Overall, the burn was pretty bad, touched up 4 times.

Here is the results...
Appearance and Presentation: 15 (20)
Lighting and Burning: 10(15)
Construction: 29(30)
Tasting Properties: 22(35)
Overall score: 76