Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole

The Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole is a maduro offering made by boutique cigar company Cordoba & Morales.  Over the past few months, this company has seen some momentum and has quietly been making a name for itself in the boutique cigar community.  The company is run by Azaires and Emile Mustafa.  Mustafa traces the start of the company back to his grandmother, Celestina Cordoba Morales, who lived in the Pinar del Rio region of Cuba.  It was his grandmother who taught and inspired him in the art of cigar making.  Today, we take a closer look at the 19th Hole.  Overall, this is a nice maduro offering, and one certainly worth keeping an eye out for.

In terms of the line, the 19th Hole is one of several cigars offered by Cordoba & Morales.  The company has four other lines it makes, and a sixth line called Puro Pinar is on the way. The company makes their cigars in Esteli, Nicaragua – and each of the cigars contain Nicaraguan tobacco.

Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole and see what this cigar brings to the table.

Blend Profile

The 19th Hole’s maduro wrapper is from Ecuador and it is wrapped over Nicaraguan binder and filler.

Wrapper: Ecuador
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua

Vitolas Available

The 19th Hole is currently available in four sizes:

Robusto: 5 x 52
Toro: 5 1/2 x 54
Doble Toro: 6 x 60
Torpedo Box Pressed 6 1/4 x 52

Appearance

For this cigar experience, I went with the Robusto size of the Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole. The wrapper of the 19th Hole is a classic dark maduro.  It has a rich coffee color and it also has some darker marbling.  The is some oil on the surface of the wrapper.  There are some visible wrapper seams as well as some visible veins.The band to the 19th Hole features a maroon, blue, silver, black, and gold color scheme. Prominently on the center of the band is a maroon-colored shield surrounded by silver and blue trim.  On the shield is the text “CÓRDOBA & MORALES” in large gold font.  Below that text it says “HAND MADE CIGARS” in white font.  There is blue and silver trim around the shield.  There also is a black ribbon below the shield that says “HECHOS A MANO” in white font.  Below the ribbon is the yet “19TH HOLE” in gold font on the blue trim.  At the top of the band is a black circle with the “CM” logo in gold.  This same logo appears on the right side of the band.

Preparation for the Cigar Experience

As I normally do,  I placed a straight cut to remove the cap of the 19th Hole.  Once I clipped the cap, I moved on to the pre-light draw.  The cold draw provided some classic Nicaruguan-blend maduro notes of mocha, earth, and some light spice.  Overall, I considered the pre-light draw to my 19th Hole Robusto to be excellent.  At this point, I was ready to light up the Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole and see the smoking phase would have in store.

Flavor Profile

The start to the Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole provided mix a nice mix of creamy chocolate and pepper. Very early on, the chocolate notes were soon joined by some earth notes.  The pepper receded to the background, but it took on some interesting qualities:  For starters, there was a nice cedar quality mixed in with the pepper spice.  The spice itself also lingered on the tongue.  I also detected the pepper on the after-draw.

During the first half the flavor profile pretty much stayed consistent.  The combination of the chocolate and earth made up the primary flavors.  The pepper and cedar combination provided the background flavor.

In the second half, the chocolate notes diminished, and the earth notes took center stage.  The spice notes now started to increase.  By the last third of the 19th Hole, the spice was in control. This is the way the flavor profile remained until the end.   I found the end of the cigar to be flavorful, but it had a slight amount of harshness.  The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature.

Burn and Draw

For the most part, the burn performed well.  There was a slight amount of curviness on the burn line, but the burn was never in danger of canoeing or tunneling.  There were some touch-ups along the way, but nothing that I considered to be an abnormal amount of touch-ups.  The resulting ash was a salt and pepper color, and had a little bit of looseness to it.  The burn rate and burn temperature were ideal.

Burn of the Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole

As for the draw, I considered it to be open, but not overly loose.  As a result, this made for a very low maintenance cigar to puff on.

Strength and Body

The Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole starts out as being a medium strength cigar.  Slowly, I did find the strength builds up on this cigar.  Earlier in the first half, the 19th Hole moved into the medium to full strength range – and remained there.  As for the body, there is quite a bit of depth to the flavors.  These flavors do have some weight on the pallet.  As I assessed the 19th Hole to be a full-bodied smoke.  Overall I found the body had the edge over the strength.

Final Thoughts

The Cordoba & Morales 19th Hole is a nice maduro.  As I mentioned before, if you are a fan of Nicaraguan and maduro cigars, this one is probably going to be a cigar that will interest you.  The cigar has a combination of the earthy and spicy Nicaraguan qualities, while its chocolate flavor brings the best from the maduro world.  Overall, this is a cigar I would recommend to either a novice or experienced cigar enthusiast.  While there may be a little more strength and body for most newbies, this is a good cigar to graduate a novice to something fuller.  As for myself, this cigar is certainly worthy of a five pack.  It’s one that I would smoke again, and it has gotten my attention to smoke some of the other cigars offered by Cordoba & Morales.

Summary

Burn: Good
Draw: Excellent
Complexity: Medium
Strength: Medium (to start),  Medium to full (Remainder)
Body: Full
Finish: Good
Assessment: 3.0 – The Fiver
Score: 88

References

Price: ~$8.00

Source: Samples provided by Manufacturer Representative (*)
Stogie Geeks Podcast: n/a
Stogie Feed: n/a

Cigars for this assessment was provided by a representative of Cordoba & Morales. The samples were received in order to provide feedback.  Cigar Coop is appreciative for the samples, but in no way does this influence this write-up.