AVO

Classic

Consistent review. This is still my least favorite of the Avo brand. Let this one age about a year and it still is just missing something compared to their others. Smooth, creamy, leather notes with barely any spice. Burns decent just misses the mark on flavor intensity.

Aged 4mo. Smooth and creamy. Cedar nut and sweetness. Great burn and draw. Paired with chamomile tea for a relaxing Sunday evening.

As always the usual opener: I consider myself an amateur at this AND my nose is kinda bad at its job. So your mileage may vary. Anyway, so this is my first taste of the AVO brand. I'd gotten recommended them, but just never tried it. Unfortunately, my attention this evening is split as I get to be remote assistance for some migration work. Frome field engineer for over a decade to remote engineer is a weird transition. At least I'm not puffing Swishers in the gut behind hotels anymore haha. Anyway enough rambling from an old bloke. After a 3 week stabilization, here we go I guess. Construction is above average. There's obvious little veins and seams but no risk of lifting and you can barely feel them. Preflight smells are good. Dry hay and a hint of cocoa. Can't tell if it's sweet or not yet. Should pair well with my coffee. Guillotine cut and I find the head is pretty tight so I do have to hit it with one of them PerfecDraw (recent gift to myself hehe) and it opens up without fuss. Lighting is uneventful. First third burns crooked right away. And whoo-whee is the first half inch bitter. I thought it was me at first and purged a few times, but it lingered. Thankfully it gives way and the rest of the third has some flavors of hay barn and cedar. Retro is pretty benign with a little fresh bread (not burnt! Yay!). Second third starts without any fanfare and the crooked burn is straight now. Smoke has been clean and plentiful and the volume increases a bit in the middle here. The flavor profile hasn't really budged. At the end of this section, a little white pepper comes up right on the lips and tongue. The final third picks up a little bit. The smoke gets creamier, glimpses of coffee and cream eases in, and the pepper comes up. Thankfully there's no burnt toast, which my palate seems particularly sensitive to. A little baking spice peaks out on the retro now but otherwise the flavor remains as hay barn, cedar, a little fresh bread on the retro and a flash of white pepper at the end. Approaching the end of the session some fleeting tastes of burnt toast tells me I'm done. Wrapping up I do have to say aside from a little overpacked head, the construction was great. I ashed it twice. The ash stuck around some inch and a half each time. The first half inch notwithstanding, the flavors established themselves early and remained completely consistent throughout. The cigar was like a driving down between fields in a convertible. Easing around in 6th gear with a slow conversation with a passenger, not a breakneck 3rd gear romp down the backwoods with a passenger holding on for dear life.

Reliable quality midweek smoke.

Nice medium bodied smoke. Ecuadoran wrapper, Dominican Olor binder, Dominican Piloto filler. Cream, leather, cedar, raisin. Balanced, no one flavor dominates. Good draw, much better than on the Ritmos I've tried. Second third had the strongest flavor with a bit of pepper, but it backed off and introduced a cinnamon touch for the finish. More complex than I had imagined going in.

one of my favorites

Profiles of leather and some sweet spice. Nothing too complex, but a good smoke nonetheless. Good draw and decent burn. Nothing super special like the other Avo blends.

Smooth and somewhat creamy profile without any harsh notes. Clean draw and burned decent.