Question ~ CAO Brazillia Piranhas

B

BlackDog

ChestBeater
I just smoked my first CAO Brazillia Piranha. The flavor was fantastic, and the burn was razor sharp, but the draw was extremely difficult. If this had been a cheap cigar I would have tossed it, but I wanted to give this cigar every effort since it had been given to me by a friend. About 1/3 of the way through the side bulged a bit and the outer wrapper broke, while the inner binder remained intact. I smoked the cigar to about the last 1.5" and it became pretty much unsmokable. Is this characteristic of the Piranhas? I really wanted this to be a "great" cigar and buy a box, since the flavor and size are right up my alley. Any comments pro or con? Thanks!
 
I smoked a Gol! earlier this morning, and it had serious burn/draw problems to the point it was unsmokable. I hope it was a fluke because I really liked the flavor.
 
I have had the CAO MX2 daggers, the Italia Piccalo, the Brazilia Piranhas, the Criollo Pampas, and the Gold Karat (all the small sizes in teh CAO line), and have had the same issue with all of them. I have since just scrapped the CAO line all together.

I bought a tin of each before camping trips, thinking that the draw issue must just be with that one flavor, but NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO, it is inherent in the brand.

My advise is avoid these sizes in any CAO cigar.

Matt
 
I have only smoked a larger size of the CAO Brasilia (Gol!, which others here think very highly of) but I tossed 3 out of five because they were plugged. That was maybe 2 years ago and I have not bought any more Brasilias. I would take a Padron standard line maduro any day over CAO, for about the same price.

:2
 
Just a suggestion: use a paper clip. If you really like the flavor and the draw is too tight, then straighten out a paper clip, and poke it into the cut end of the cigar as far as necessary and as many times a needed until the draw improves (be very careful not to poke through the wrapper).

One of my favorite, go-to smokes is the Partagas Black. About 3 out of 10 have a very tight draw, and occasionally one is plugged. I wouldn't do this for just any cigar, but I like these so much it's well worth it. I keep a big paper clip with my smokes just for this purpose. I've had to use it for Brazillias as well.

Also, a lot of B&M's will give you another cigar if you get one that's plugged.

It's up to you though, to decide if the extra work is worth it.
 
i had a CAO MX2 a couple of months ago. it had the worst draw i have ever had and the taste wasn't even that great. i suffered through it, but i will never buy an MX2 again. i consider it to be one of the worst cigars i have ever smoked. my :2
 
Just a suggestion: use a paper clip. If you really like the flavor and the draw is too tight, then straighten out a paper clip, and poke it into the cut end of the cigar as far as necessary and as many times a needed until the draw improves (be very careful not to poke through the wrapper).
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I have had some luck with this technique (or lacking a paper clip, sometimes a toothpick works). I agree with the above assessments, though - it seems that the whole CAO line has issues with tight draws, so much so that I seldom buy them. I have one CAO Brazilia Lambada in my humidor, but that's it.
 
I've never had anything like that happen with a Brazilia.
I have a bunch of Piranha, Samba and Lambada.
They age nicely, too. Most of mine are 4 - 6 yo.
 
I have killed entirely waaaaaaaaaaaay too many boxes of Piranhas.

Humidity is a HUGE factor when you're smoking ANY petit corona size smokes - keep 'em a little drier and they burn excellent. JMHO, of course.
 
Smoked a bunch of these and never had one do that. I think these little guys like 65%.
 
I've smoked TONS of CAO cigars and never had this problem with any of them. I keep all my cigars at 64%.
 
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