Sorullos by Serious Cigars

Serious Cigars is a well known retailer based in Houston, Texas.  Sorullos is a cigar that is made in Nicaragua and at this time is only available at Serious Cigars.  This was a very unique cigar that is a figuardo described as “torpedo-ish”.  It has a subtle tapering toward the footer.  It also has a rough cut toward the footer and a very long tail.  Recently, I had an opportunity to smoke this cigar.  Not only did I find this to be an excellent cigar, but priced at $4.95 one of the best value smokes I have found out there.

Sorullos Cigars’ owner Ron Lesseraux describes the story of how this project came to be:

While walking through a Nicaraguan cigar factory, I observed a roller bunching leaves in his hand and rolling them with a binder. He finished them off with a medium, dark maduro wrapper and without using a mold of any kind. The cigars he made were rough looking torpedos. The roller then fired one up. He clearly was not making a production cigar for the factory or for our testing purposes. I asked the floor manager if he would allow me to try one. He hesitated a bit. He must have thought it to be improper to give me such a rustic looking cigar. The roller finally handed me his personal creation. I thanked him and went back to the small office in the factory where we were going to test many samples that day.


I cut the cigar and fired it up. My first impression was that the head was soft and slightly squishy. With the cigar foot being unfinished, it took a couple of puffs to get it lit properly. Once this little jewel got going, it was truly exceptional. Imperfectly perfect. Doing my best to contain my excitement, I wondered how I could get him to make us enough cigars to sell and bring this smoke back for everyone’s enjoyment. I asked the supervisor what the blend was. He told me he did not know. “The roller just makes those for himself.” Of course, my next question was: “Can he make these for us?”


At a glance, let’s take a closer look at the Sorullos by Serious Cigars and see what this cigar brings to the table:

Blend Profile

The Sorullos uses a dark maduro habano leaf wrapper.  The binder and filler are Nicaraguan tobaccos.

Wrapper: Habano Maduro
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan

Vitolas Available

The Sorullos is available in one size. As mentioned it is called “torpedo-ish” and measures 6 x 50. As described above, the cigar is made without a mold.

Appearance

The Habano Maduro wrapper of the Sorullos has a coffee bean color to it.  The wrapper itself has a nice oily complexion.  As mentioned above, there is a rough cut foot.  I wouldn’t describe it as a shag, but it exposes the binder for about an inch up from the footer.  The wrapper portion has a rugged and bumpy look to it.  There are some visible veins and visible wrapper seams.  The cap is finished with a very long tail from the excess wrapper.

The band of the Sorullos is beige in color with silver trim.  Prominently on the center of the band is the text “Sorullos” in brown cursive font.  Just below are some silver adornments and below that is the printed text “HANDCRAFTED NICARAGUAN CIGARS” in brown font.

Preparation for the Cigar Experience

As opposed to pulling the tail of the Sorullos, I went with a straight cut to remove the cap with the tail attached.  Once the cap was removed, I moved on to the pre-light draw.  The dry draw provided some notes of coffee with a light spice.  While it wasn’t the most complex dry draw, I did consider this a satisfactory pre-light experience.  At this point I was ready to light up the Sorullos and see what the overall smoking experience would have in store.

Flavor Profile

The start to the Sorullos delivered notes of coffee and cedar.  There was some pepper flavors in the background as well as a mild citrus component.  I was actually quite surprised that the flavors were on the smoother side while on the rough cut part of the cigar.  There was a mix of pepper and cedar spice on the retro-hale.

There wasn’t a radical transition as the cigar transitioned to the wrapper part of the cigar.  The coffee notes got richer.  The cedar notes were still in the forefront and provided some sweetness. Most importantly, the smoothness remained.  The pepper notes were also secondary not he tongue, but a little more prominent on the finish.

By the midway point, both the cedar and coffee notes started to lose their edge. I found the profile transitioned to more of a woody one. The pepper notes slowly increased and the citrus diminished. By the last third the flavor profile of the Sorullos was mostly woody and peppery, but there were still points where I could detect the coffee and cedar. I did find by this point the cigar had lost some of its smoothness. This is the way the flavors finished at the tail end of the Sorullos. The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature.

Burn and Draw

With many unorthodox shaped cigars,  I usually find they fall short of expectations when it comes to how they perform with burn and draw.  Given the tapering on this cigar and it had a longer rough cut, I didn’t know what to expect.  The end result was the Sorullos really surprised me and came through with flying colors.

The burn line remained relatively straight from start to finish.  The ash had a salt and pepper color for the duration of the cigar experience.  The ash itself was on the firm side.  The burn rate and burn temperature were ideal.

Burn of the Sorullos by Serious Cigars

The draw was ideal as well.  There were no issues deriving flavor from the Sorullos – this was a low maintenance cigar to puff on.

Strength and Body

The Sorullos is not going to be a nicotine bomb nor will be a cigar where the flavors weigh heavily on the pallet.  At the same time this is not a dialed back medium offering.  I found this cigar that delivers the right amount of strength and the right amount of body.  I found the Sorullos to fall into the medium to full range for both attributes.  Both attributes balanced each other very nicely with neither one overpowering the other.

Final Thoughts

Overall I found the Sorullos to be an excellent offering. Not only is there a unique presentation, but I found the cigar to deliver some very nice flavors. The thing that still amazes me is how well this cigar smoked even during the “rough cut” portion. This offers a terrific cigar experience for under $5.00. This is a cigar I would recommend to either the novice or experienced cigar enthusiast. While it has a little more strength and body than I would normally give to a novice, I still find this to be the perfect cigar to help graduate that present to a more fuller offering. As for myself, this is a cigar I would certainly purchase again – and it’s definitely worthy of a fiver.

Summary

Burn: Excellent
Draw: Excellent
Complexity: Medium
Strength: Medium to Full
Body: Medium to Full
Assessment: 3.0 – The Fiver
Score: 90

References

News: n/a
Price: $4.95
Source: Samples provided by Manufacturer (*)
Stogie Geeks Podcast: n/a
Stogie Feed: n/a

* The cigars for this assessment were provided to Cigar Coop by Serious Cigars. Cigar Coop is appreciative for the sample, but this does not influence this review