The Particulars

The Review

This review for the LA Cigar Collective Gris Gris - Toro (6 x 50) is based on the journal entry dated 2025-05-26

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

The Sumatra is a nice warm, chocolate brown with light sheen and plenty of mild tooth.  There’s a little bit of mottling providing some darker areas to the leaf around the veins. There’s a couple visible veins, but they’re light and thin.  The seams are tight with just the faintest edge lift on a couple spot and the triple cap is perfectly even and cleanly applied.  The cigar has a nice firmness to it. And if you skipped my history lesson, well the label makes it clear with the chicken foot graphic. 😅

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

The draw is ideal and the burn starts nicely.    The ash is a light gray that’s very solid with only some faint darker striations appearing. There’s large number of nearly invisible oil crystals blending in as well.  This cigar isn’t a 💨💣, but does produce a nice thick white smoke on draws.  The burn line is dead even almost the entire smoke.

Flavor Profile (0-5):  Great (4)

This is an interesting blend because I can’t immediately identify every flavor. The big hits are cedar woodiness, roasted peanut shell nuttiness and black pepper with a citrusy sweet on the back end. I’m getting bits of coffee, chocolate, cinnamon baking spice along with musty barnyard and earth. This is a very bready and toasty profile, that gives big breakfast vibes. But there’s one flavor I’m still not identifying yet and it’s going to drive me nuts because it comes on the exhale, but I’m thinking it’s just sweet hay like grassiness. 😅

Getting into the second third and the good times keep coming. The citrus fruit sweetness really livens this blend up, it’s almost lemony with the amount of zest it brings. I’m getting a lot of sourdough at this point, some ginger and mild coffee still, while the earth and barnyard step back. The profile really hasn’t changed, it’s just giving some of the background flavors a chance to step into the limelight. Overall great complexity here and a nice creaminess on the finish that carries into the final third. This works great with a sweeter drink but would probably pair well with coffee too.

Overall Experience (0-5):  Great (4)

Another highly pleasing and complex blend that LACC has had made for their shop. What I really like about the two blends Kyle has chosen thus far is they stand out a bit from the crowd, instead of being a “version” of another popular cigar. And if it is similar, well I haven’t tried it yet. 😅 But I think they’re choosing the right partners and making smart choices with them. If you’re not local to the shop, they do sell these online, so getting there in person isn’t necessary!

Review Base Rating (0-5):

4.50

Would I Buy It Again?

Signs point to yes (recommended)

Review Final Score (0-10):

8.83

Postscript

2026-Jan-11:  Since initially reviewing the Gris Gris, there’s been one thing that’s absolutely clear on follow-up experiences.  The cigar was maybe only a month or two post-roll with the initial review and it’s just getting better with age.  The sourdough breadiness and light salty notes give this cigar a fantastic pretzel bread profile.  You’ll see in the journal entries below that the scores keep going up with time.  What pains me about this, is all the Gris Gris are currently from the same batch.  At some point, a new batch will need to be produced and all of those will need at least 6 months to really start to shine.  It’s not a lifetime, but the extra 6 months of aging has made a world of difference with this cigar.

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.