• Inspired by hot rods and pin-up girls, CAO Flathead is a box pressed collection that hits on all cylinders. Hand-shaped to deliver a striking flat top, the cigar features a brawny Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper and a blend that’s heavy on Nicaraguan leaf. Cigar Aficionado's #3 Cigar of the Year of 2015.
• 6 x60
• Box pressed Gordo
• Nicaraguan
• Box of 24 Cigars

There really are not enough good cigars that are box-pressed. Truly, it is a pity, because to me, the box-pressed cigar seems to be a bit more natural in the mouth, and I like having a cigar that basically tells you how it should be held, which flattened sides are definitely helpful for.

CAO makes a lot of interesting cigars with unusual themes behind them, including their line of cigars that are basically puros, made entirely in one country of one country’s tobacco, like their Brazilia vitolas. It’s kind of an interesting thing to see how they find their inspiration for cigars, and the CAO Flathead had an interesting inspiration to it.

Anyone who knows anything about old cars knows where the inspiration for these cigars came. It comes from the muscle cars of the 50s, the pin-up era. The cigars harken back to a time when the United States was better off, when we were the only name in the game manufacturing great cars. It does a great job of paying a proper homage, too.

You see, it begins with a Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper, into which they place Nicaraguan and Dominican long-leaf filler, which is bound with Connecticut Habano leaf. This gives you a spicy, peppery cigar, one that also has notes of dark coffee, and with an oily enough wrapper that you will be able to blow thick and luxurious clouds of smoke, just like the engines of those old muscle cars. A great cigar, and a nice homage to the way that cars once were made and the golden age of manufacturing here in the United States. Brilliant!