The Particulars

The Review

This review for the Surpassion Queen of Battle - Toro (6 x 50) is based on the journal entry dated 2026-06-15

Appearance & Construction (0-3):  Good (3)

I love it when a cigar looks like it was properly thought out from blend to band, bringing it all together in a beautiful presentation. The aged Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper here is gorgeous. It’s a warm, light brown with orange hues that is noticeably darker than a lot of other Connecticut wrappers. It features good oil, heavy mottling, and super-thin veins. The roll is clean and tight with nearly invisible seams, though the wrapper seems thin enough that bumps, bulges, and ripples from the binder layer easily show through. The cigar itself is on the softer side and a bit squishy. The colors and design of the double bands are on point, though I do find it interesting that the colorway immediately makes me think of the Air Force, whereas Asad served in the Army. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful presentation all around.​

Draw (0-3) & Burn (0-4):  Average (2) / Good (3)

The draw is wide open with absolutely no resistance, and the burn starts with a lot of carve-outs in the burn line, so it needs a moment to see if it will flatten out. Smoke output is copious on the draws, with the cigar still pushing smoke out through the head between puffs. By the end of the first inch, the burn line has evened out nicely with just a bit of a wave to it. I don’t expect this cigar to burn dead-flat, but it remains controlled and even enough. The ash holds on past the first third and nearly to the midpoint before I carefully rolled it off into the ashtray.

In the last inch, however, the cigar gets overly squishy, and some of the filler actually starts to fall out and into my mouth. It’s a massive frustration, even if it doesn’t strictly affect the burn or profile. I ended up pulling out a lot of little pieces of tobacco leaf and several larger chunks as well, which ultimately caused the head of the cigar to collapse at the very end.

Flavor Profile (0-5):  Good (3)

Immediate flavors of cedar, honey, cinnamon, and white pepper hit the palate, backed by a nice buttercream finish. A graham cracker breadiness enters shortly thereafter, bringing bits of coffee and a very mild earthiness. The white pepper gravitates toward black pepper at times with varying intensity, so even in the first inch, I’m getting some harsh irritation at the back of my soft palate and down into my throat. The blend also gets dry at times, losing that honey and buttery creaminess that really makes it enjoyable, leaving behind drier cedar, cracker, and pepper notes.

Into the second third, I’m getting more of a mix of varying spices and peppers, with the graham cracker note shifting more toward a standard white cracker flavor. At the moment, the sweet and creamy notes are heavily reduced, making for a very dry profile. Depending on your palate, you’ll either love it or hate it, but I’m heavily reminded of those spicy Smokehouse Crackers—the oyster crackers coated in a mix of ranch and cayenne seasoning. I’m genuinely surprised by how much spice this cigar has for being advertised as a mellow-to-medium blend. When the honey and creamy notes dip out, it gets intensely savory and dry like that, but then they magically come back just in time before the blend crosses the line into being too dry and spicy. It’s a constant back-and-forth between dry/spicy and sweet/creamy. My biggest gripe is that I’m just not getting enough of the sweet and cream. While I’m enjoying the dry and spicy bits—and the back-of-the-palate harshness is long gone—the sweet and creamy portions are definitely the superior side of this cigar.

I mentioned coffee early on, and that’s still present. It’s mild, but I get a slightly bitter anise aftertaste with a slight, raisin-like sweetness mixed into the dry sections. It’s been barely perceptible in most parts of the mix, but it creeps up slightly in the final third. The cigar closes out with one last burst of coffee, spice, cedar, honey, and creaminess.

Overall Experience (0-5):  Good (3)

This one was a bit of a mixed bag. While the blend was very good overall, the dry and spicy portions might be less appealing depending on your specific palate. The sweet and creamy moments of the cigar were definitely the high point. The cigar getting squishy and spitting filler into my mouth at the end really dragged down the overall experience, but I’ll see how the next several perform to determine if it’s a recurring issue or just a one-off. This isn’t a bad cigar at all, but it might not meet your typical expectations for a Connecticut-wrapped blend.  The biggest challenge the Queen of Battle faces is there are a lot of other very good Connecticut wrapped options at this price point, making it a very crowded field to stand out in.

Postscript

Smoking the second cigar, it was much milder on the spice, featuring more honey and buttery creaminess but significantly less overall flavor intensity. It didn’t burn quite as well, requiring a relight before the first inch was even complete. The spice leaned more toward white pepper and cinnamon rather than the red and black pepper of the first sample. It wasn’t radically different, just milder and a little boring. It’ll be interesting to see how the remaining cigars in my reserves do in the future. Will they be more like the first or the second?  If you’ve smoked this cigar, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the socials.

Overall Score and Individual Journal Entries

While the review is based off one instance of journaling this cigar; there’s a number of reasons you can have different experiences smoking the same cigar multiple times. A blend can evolve with age (for better or worse), palates evolves, preferences change, and sometimes you just get a bad example!  This section captures the ratings from each journal entry and the related journal photo.  Below you’ll find an aggregate score based on every time the cigar has been journaled. Unless it was a gift or on-off smoke, this section will be updated every time I journal this cigar!

The Flavor Wheel

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.