Black Label Trading Company Lawless Robusto – Bury the Leaf
Some cigars politely introduce themselves.
The Lawless kicks the door open, tracks mud across the floor, grabs the good chair, and looks around like it owns the place.
That probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise from a cigar wearing a skull, barbed wire, and the word Lawless around its waist. Subtlety clearly wasn’t invited to the meeting. What was surprising was how much control sat underneath all that noise.
This wasn’t strength for strength’s sake. It wasn’t some nicotine-soaked bar fight masquerading as complexity. The Black Label Trading Co. Lawless Robusto simply had a whole lot to say, and for a little 5 × 54 cigar, it managed to say damn near all of it.
My first Black Label Trading Company cigar came out swinging.
And apparently nobody told it to stop.
By the Numbers
- Vitola: Robusto — 5 × 54
- Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano Rosado
- Filler/Binder: Nicaraguan / Nicaraguan
- Cut: Straight cut — Colibri
- Procured from: Neptune Cigars — Black Label Trading Company sampler
- Price Paid: $1.25 after Neptune loyalty points; $10.16 allocated sampler price
- Estimated MSRP: Approximately $12.81
- Duration: 1 hour, 6 minutes
- Band Rating: 5 Bands — Chase It Down
Construction & First Impressions
The Lawless showed up looking the part.
The Ecuadorian Habano Rosado wrapper was noticeably veiny, with enough texture to remind you this came off a plant instead of an assembly line. It was solid from cap to foot, although there was a distinctly firmer section around where the first third would eventually transition into the second. Nothing felt spongy or suggested some major internal construction problem; it was simply a spot worth keeping an eye on.
The wrapper carried an earthy cocoa aroma, with a little more cocoa showing up at the foot. The cap had plenty of depth for a straight cut, and the Colibri handled it cleanly.
Then came the first surprise.
For as firm as parts of the cigar felt in the hand, the cold draw was remarkably free-flowing. Cocoa and mild earth led the way, followed by straight tobacco and something approaching raisin.
Nothing about it screamed what was about to happen.
Once fire hit the foot, the aroma immediately changed the mood. This smelled like good cigar tobacco being put to work.
Then the Lawless threw the first punch.
First Third
Red pepper.
Not generic “pepper.” Not the automatic black-pepper note that gets stapled onto half the cigars on the internet.
Red pepper.
It came screaming through almost immediately, accompanied by espresso on the retrohale and restricted exhale. There was no gradual introduction and no easing into the evening. The Lawless essentially announced, Here I am. Deal with it.
That happens to land squarely in my wheelhouse.
The flavor was aggressive without being harsh, and that distinction matters. There was heat across the palate, but it wasn’t roughness. The cigar had simply opened the throttle on flavor.
Then I introduced Fever-Tree ginger beer.
That pairing deserves its own mention because it was ridiculous how well the two worked together. The ginger reinforced the spice without burying the cigar, and almost immediately a strange nuttiness started surfacing underneath the pepper.
I spent a while trying to identify the nut and never really got there.
It wasn’t obviously cashew. It wasn’t almond. It wasn’t peanut. Trying to force a name onto it would have been pretending I knew something I didn’t.
It was simply this unusual, savory nuttiness running underneath the profile.
Cedar began emerging as the red pepper took half a step backward. Toasted wood joined it. The ginger beer brought the spice into sharper focus, and whenever I let the ginger fade from my palate, the cigar’s natural red pepper came charging right back through.
Meanwhile, construction was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. The draw remained open, smoke production was substantial, and the burn behaved itself.
Cedar. Nuts. Pepper. Spice. Earth.
Every different way of moving the smoke around the palate seemed to uncover something else.
That was when the Lawless stopped being merely a spicy cigar and started showing why a conversation with the BLTC team had pointed me toward it when we talked about the portfolio and the flavor profiles I tend to enjoy.
He knew what he was doing.
Second Third
The second third was where the Lawless demonstrated that the opening fireworks weren’t the whole trick.
The pepper began to settle. Not disappear — this cigar wasn’t suddenly going soft — but step back enough to make room for something different.
The spice started reminding me of rye.
That played beautifully against the ginger beer, because rye and ginger already make sense together. Here, though, there wasn’t a drop of whiskey involved. The cigar itself was supplying that dry, grain-like spice while the ginger beer handled the other side of the equation.
Then cinnamon arrived.
The profile had gone from red pepper, espresso, cedar and that peculiar nuttiness into rye spice, cinnamon and increasingly toasted nuts. It wasn’t losing intensity. It was redirecting it.
That became one of the most important distinctions of the entire smoke.
The Lawless was never particularly interested in mellowing.
It evolved.
Flavor remained bold, but what was creating that boldness kept changing. The opening pepper didn’t have to scream for the entire cigar because something else was always waiting behind it.
Construction finally required a little attention here when the burn began wandering. I gave it a small preventive touch-up before it had an opportunity to become a real problem. It didn’t need surgery, a full relight, or the kind of babysitting that can wreck an otherwise good experience.
A little kiss from the lighter and we were back in business.
By the latter portion of the second third, that mysterious nuttiness was becoming increasingly prominent. Toasted rye joined it, and the Lawless kept rolling toward the final third with plenty left in the tank.
Final Third
Leather.
That was the next turn.
As the cigar entered its final stretch, leather began sliding underneath the toasted nuts and rye spice. It was exactly the kind of transition this cigar needed.
Think about where we started.
Red pepper and espresso.
Then cedar and that strange nuttiness.
Then rye and cinnamon.
Then toasted nuts.
Now leather.
And none of it felt like somebody dumping the spice cabinet onto the table and trying to convince you it was complexity. The flavors lingered long enough to identify them, then moved aside naturally for whatever was coming next.
The leather became increasingly prominent as the cigar shortened, with toasted nuts still hanging around beside it.
More importantly, the intensity never collapsed.
That deserves repeating because strength and flavor intensity get treated like the same thing far too often.
They aren’t.
The Lawless carried a medium-full presence, but it never beat me over the head with nicotine. The flavor, on the other hand, was enormous. It remained concentrated and memorable right down toward the end.
There’s a difference between a cigar being powerful because it makes your forehead sweat and a cigar being powerful because your palate keeps getting hammered with recognizable flavor.
The Lawless lived firmly in the second camp.
The last stretch brought the whole thing home with toasted nuts and leather. No desperate final-third attempt to invent another personality. No collapse into generic hot tobacco.
Just a logical ending to a cigar that had spent the previous hour moving through one flavor after another.
Millennium of Aftermath
This was my first experience with Black Label Trading Company.
Well, hell of an introduction.
I’d previously had the opportunity to talk with Derek about Black Label Trading Company, its cigars, and the kinds of profiles I enjoy. The Lawless was one of the cigars he pointed me toward.
Now I understand why.
There are cigars that are strong.
There are cigars that are flavorful.
And then there are cigars like this, where the amount of flavor makes the experience feel powerful even though the actual nicotine strength never becomes the main event.
That is the Lawless.
Red pepper and espresso came through the front door. Cedar and an impossible-to-name nuttiness moved in behind them. Rye and cinnamon took over the middle. Toasted nuts and leather closed the place down.
The construction supported all of it. One small preventive burn correction was the only meaningful complaint, and that’s nowhere near enough to take away from everything this cigar did right.
Even better, the Robusto format concentrated the experience. There wasn’t much wasted real estate. It got to work quickly, kept changing, and stayed interesting until there wasn’t enough cigar left to justify holding onto it.
I’ve already got more Black Label Trading Company sitting in the humidor, and after this introduction, getting through the rest of that catalog just moved considerably higher on the priority list.
The Lawless earns 5 Bands — Chase It Down.
That rating is supposed to be rare.
This is why.
My first Black Label Trading Company cigar turned out to be a lot like having sex while camping.
It was fu**ing in tents.
-
Wanted for Disturbing the Peace
Black Label Trading Company Lawless Robusto – Bury the Leaf Some cigars politely introduce themselves.…
-
Sometimes the Guy Behind the Counter Knows Something
Stolen Throne Call to Arms Sumatra – Bury the Leaf There are plenty of ways…
-
A S’more at the Start and Corojo by the Finish
Ceniza Fina Corojo – Bury the Leaf Some cigars arrive with a marching band. This…
Leave a Reply