Initial Thoughts

I’ll be honest, I haven’t smoked too many non-Cuban Romeo y Julietas. I tend to pass them up in the B&M shops and head towards the boutique section. As of late though, I’ve been finding myself smoking more Altadis & STG owned brands or Big Box brands. I supposed that’s just the evolution of cigar smoking. You bounce around and find other lines that you just pick up and explore.

However, I didn’t do any browsing of a B&M to find this Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta. In fact our sponsors BestCigarPrices.com hooked me up with a sample. This particular blend is handmade just for their online shop. It comes in a 20 count box of 6in by 56 rg Toro-sized cigars. The outside is a rare Habano 2000 wrapper and they use a Dominican Piloto binder to contain all the inside goodness. Not much detail on the filler leaves other than they’re Dominican.

Not much more info about this particular line of cigars from RyJ. However, I did some quick Google translating and Primer Lote stands for First Lot. So that’s kind of cool, not sure what else that really means though, but I’m digging it!

Looks

Since I only received 2 sticks for review I can’t dig into the packaging of the Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta too much. However, the box image shown on the BCP website looks pretty nifty. It’s a subtle white box, but under the lid on the inside is a nice image of a tobacco plant. It looks hand sketched which is even more impressive and imprinted in a nice offset maroon / red color.

The band of the Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta is fairly simply as well. In fact there is no band denoting the Primer Lote name. I had to find it by looking at the stick / barcode on the back of the cellophane wrapper. Something that appears to be consistent on most Romeo y Julieta cigars is the 1875 date as well as the Medallas de Oro. The 1875 is a homage to their Cuban roots and they can trace their heritage back to 1875 which is pretty impressive. As part of their storied history they collected numerous honors across the globe as a premier cigars amongst many world fairs. Those honors were distributed as Gold Medals, or Medallas de Oro. So it’s a nice way of keeping that heritage front and center for the new world of cigars smokers to see.

This Habano 2000 wrapper is absolutely fantastic looking. Nice and smooth texture with one small vein running down through. It has a very oily and shiny chocolate color to it. In fact it’s making me hungry so time to dive into this Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta and see what it’s all about.

Smoking

There is something about the Toro size vitola that I both love and dislike. I know I’m going to be in for at least an hour and a half smoke. Usually, I don’t have any draw issues with this size. I think the 56 ring gauge allows great draw ability even if the manufacturer isn’t the best with their quality assurance. I think this size is very forgiving and incredibly easy to smoke. So I’ve got good feelings about this Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta.

Coming out of the gate this cigar is wide open and producing a ton of smoke. I had to open up my garage door all the way to help run some smoke out. I lost my first 1/2″ ash on the floor, luckily not in my lap this time! Overall this Primer Lote by Romeo Y Julieta smoked very well. I never had any draw issues. At a few different points I did struggle with an un-even burning wrapper though. It never canoed or go too crazy just didn’t look great for pictures. Let’s be honest, if it doesn’t look great in pictures then what’s the point of smoking it right? I’ve gotta make sure people like my instagram posts. Seriously, though great draw and a very easy smoking experience, so nothing to complain about here.