CAO Criollo Pampa
40 ring gauge - 4"
Reviewed by Dave Francis
Dinky !!
Ooo, what a dinky little cigar !! Forty ring gauge and
just four diddy little inches long, the Criollo Pampa can
hardly be described as"over long ". It's a real shame that
the cigar world tends to pooh-pooh smaller cigars,
deciding that bigger and stronger is better. When you
fancy a cigar and only have time for a coffee or two -
your choices are a smaller cigar or nothing, so the dinky
little Criollo Pampa has a definite place in the cigar
pantheon. On top of that, the "larger ring gauge" folks
out there will tell you that the bigger the ring gauge,
the more complex and flavourful the stogie. I beg to
differ. The larger the ring gauge, the potentially more
complex and flavourful the cigar. I've smoked plenty of
fat cigars whose taste can be best described as "boring"
and plenty of small cigars which were very nice smokes
indeed. In other words - it's not the size but the
quality. What's in the stick is what counts.
The Criollo Pampa is a nice, well made little cigar which
put me in mind of a Petit Upmann or a Fonseca KDT Kadete -
both of which are very enjoyable smokes. Like the Fonseca,
the CAO comes in its' own little paper wrapper with a
ribbon on it (which my girlfriend liked very much, of
course) - unlike both the Upmann and the Kadete, the CAO
has a cute little Cuban style pigtail. All the CAO Criollo
range have, part of CAO's stated intent to make cigars
which are Cuban like in character. The CAO is very nicely
made, "almost perfectly rolled", he said. The review
sample which I received had a very pleasant oily dark
brown wrapper free of blemishes or veins - the entire
Criollo range (pronounced "cree- yo -yo") sport very nice
wrappers indeed. Seems a shame to cover ‘em up with paper
and ribbons, but I dare say CAO know best, and who am I to
argue ? I've always felt that Fonseca would get more sales
if they took the paper covers off their sticks and let
their wrappers speak for themselves, incidentally. What
precisely the covers do to preserve a cigar which is going
to go straight in a humidor is a question for greater
minds than my own. No matter. That's the way it is. The
whole Criollo range, to me, looks very Fonseca - like,
Fonseca's are very nice cigars indeed, on with the review.
Before the cutter came out and fire was applied, I took a
good look at the Pampa. It's a very nicely made little
stick. My review sample had a slight impression in it -
finger mark from the rolling, most probably - but - that's
a picky reviewer talking. Really, you couldn't fault the
way that the Pampa had been put together. CAO Criollo's
are generally rock hard cigars with little to no give in
them - hence very tight draws - and the Pampa wasn't an
exception. There was no give felt when lightly squeezing
the Pampa's sides - I could easily squeeze a CAO Cameroon,
but the Pampa was very tight indeed.Looking at the foot of
the cigar, my impression that this was a tightly packed
cigar was confirmed. The CAO Cameroon and Maduro ranges
are box pressed - the Criollo range is rolled - and very
nicely too. A very well made cap finishing in a Cuban
style pigtail (cut short) completed the "optical once
over" - the CAO Pampa passed with flying colours. A very
nicely made little stick indeed.
The dinky little head came off the Pampa with a
disturbingly tight "snick" - typical to all cigars in the
Criollo range, which are very tightly packed. Pre light
draw was fine. Strangely, these seem to be very tight and
dense cigars, but - the air still gets through them. I
always cut my cigars wide, and my CAO Criollos extra wide.
I also give my Criollos a very good boiling in the humi
first, as well. The CAO took a little while to light, due
to the tight draw, but eventually sparked up into cherry
red life. A very pleasant toasty taste of earth, spice and
perhaps nuts or grass became evident. Very enjoyable. The
Pampa was a light to medium strength with light to medium
flavours - not a very complex cigar, but - pleasant. Once
underway, the Pampa behaved nicely, burning without
problems - a pleasing smoke indeed. You may be thinking I
harp on a bit about the tight draw on CAO Criollos - the
Pampa was, indeed, a tight draw, but not in the same "golf
ball up a hosepipe" league as its' larger cousins. I did,
however, wish it was a little easier to draw on the Pampa
now and then - whilst I could charitably use such
euphemisms as "controllable draw", really, the roll was a
little too tight for me to get the best out of the Pampa.
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Strangely enough, for a cigar which, paper cover and all,
had reminded me of a Fonseca KDT Kadete, the CAO Criollo Pampa had
a slightly fragrant and grassy aroma - similar to the Fonseca
which it appeared to be emulating. Whether this was by accident or
design, I can't tell, but - along with a toasty, earthy flavour
with diminishing spice as the cigar got underway, I can definitely
say that I caught a whiff of grass more than once when smoking the
Pampa. It was a genuinely pleasant little cigar to relax with.
Complexity wasn't massive - the CAO presented you with an
interesting taste and left things at that. So many cigars -
Nicaraguan, Dominican, Cuban et al - do exactly that, and I was
enjoying smoking the Pampa. Strangely, it didn't taste
"Nicaraguan" to me, but perhaps more "Cuban like" than any other
cigar in the CAO Criollo range. The larger the ring gauge in the
Criollo range, the more the cigars tend to eventually show up
their non- Cuban roots. What I appeared to be smoking was a
pleasant, interesting small Cuban cigar. The little Pampa had
enough character to make it an interesting smoke, and the light to
medium flavour and taste, coupled with the small size, made it a
very good "beginners' cigar" - notice I didn't dare say "ladies'
cigar" there. Really, some reviewers would take a look at the
Lilliputian dimensions of the Pampa, take a few drags, realise it
wasn't a flavour bomb and damn it there and then - I liked the
Pampa. It wasn't a huge, macho Cuban telegraph pole, it didn't
drip with spice nor pulsate with pepper, it was a nice,
inoffensive, relaxed little smoke to be ignited when one didn't
have an hour plus to spend with a corona gorda. I've smoked lots
of small cigars and - compared to the norm, the Pampa was a nice
little smoke. I don't think - at this stage - I had anything bad
to say about it.
As we got underway, the initial spiciness of the cigar diminished,
and was replaced with a balanced blend of earth, mild spice and a
certain grassiness. The Pampa spent more time in my mouth than in
the ashtray - the sign of a good cigar - also the sign of one
where you had to take a much deeper drag than usual to defeat the
tight draw and get something out of it. However, given that I
definitely liked the Pampa, I was prepared to put up with an
overtight draw. The first dab of very crunchy, flour like white
ash fell off an inch and three quarters in, by which time, the CAO
was showing some signs of growing hotter. Ignoring such potential
treachery, I puffed away at it, enjoying the experience of smoking
a nice little characterful cigar.
Half way in, the Pampa was growing only slightly stronger,
exhibiting the same toasty, earthy, slightly spicy and grassy
flavours as before. Despite the tight draw, the CAO was burning
fast, and a quick massage to open the cigar up had an unfortunate
effect - the wrapper began to unravel. At the same time - horror
and thrice horror - the Pampa also became tarry and to prove bad
luck comes in threes, a minor burn problem began to develop. I'm
pretty sure that the attendant horrors were just a result of one
errant review cigar. However, as the end of the Pampa became more
tarry, I decided to reach for the cutter to take a slice off the
head - and the fun really started……
With the last third of the CAO now burning, my wafer thin slice of
the cutter at once solved the tar buildup - and caused the wrapper
to start coming off big style. Cursing, invoking the wrath of the
Cigar God and trying to hold the thing back on with my fingers had
no effect - I merely put up with the thin wrapper trying to jump
ship with every drag and soldiered on. Word about the wrapper -
"thin" isn't in it. This one looked like it'd been cut with a
microtome - luckily, the wrapper'd been wound around the binder
until it was three layers thick, which saved me from total stogie
disintegration. The fact that I continued smoking the CAO at this
level of imminent collapse shows, I think, two things - how much I
was enjoying it and what a cheapskate I am. The Pampa, other than
trying to fall to bits, behaved itself. Strength never got more
than medium, with pleasing toasty, earthy grassiness to the end,
the stogie never got too hot and was smokeable to the nub, at
which point it was left to quietly expire in the ashtray.
Did I enjoy the CAO Criollo Pampa ? Yep, definitely. As small
cigars go, the Pampa is a pleasant, light smoke which won't take
up too much of your time. Or money. We'd all like to associate the
words "hand rolled cigar" with a huge, powerful Cuban, but for
those of us who don't have the time, inclination or money to
survive on a diet of Churchills or Lonsdales, the CAO Criollo
Pampa represents a very pleasant little diversion. It's probably
the most "Cuban like" of the already "Cuban like" CAO range, and,
construction problems apart, I enjoyed spending 35 minutes in its'
company. I'd be quite willing to spark another one up - yes, I do
wish CAO would do something about the (over) tight draw on all the
Criollo range, but - I could live with it, and, in the larger ring
gauges, the tight draw makes the larger size Criollos
controllable. Yet again, another nice cigar from CAO and a
pleasant alternative to a Cuban. If you're as tight with handing
out your Havana cigars as I am - this may be the one to pass
around to your friends. |
