Ashton ESG 23 Year Salute Toro Review

2026-09-19  Hand-Me-One · 2/4 My Money · by Eric

Filed under: Burn Issues · Wedding Cigars · Coffee & Cigars · Dominican Republic · Natural / Claro / Colorado · The Ash · The Draw · What Cigars Cost · Puro

Verdict: The Ashton ESG 23 Year Salute Toro is a Hand-Me-One (2/4) at about $30 street... a creamy, cedar, plum-sweet middle that I'd call phenomenal, wrapped in a snug draw, three touch-ups, and a final third that went flat to straight cedar, and at thirty dollars the middle alone doesn't carry it. If someone hands you one, smoke it and enjoy the second third. I wouldn't spend my own money on five.

Brand

Ashton

Line

ESG (Estate Sun Grown) 23 Year Salute

Vitola

Toro

Size

6 1/4 x 52

Wrapper

Dominican Sun Grown (Chateau de la Fuente)

Binder

Dominican

Filler

Dominican

Made in

Dominican Republic

Factory

Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cía, Santiago

Street price

$30

ESG stands for Estate Sun Grown. It's the Ashton line the Fuente family makes at Tabacalera A. Fuente in Santiago, and it's a Dominican puro built around a sun grown wrapper from the Fuentes' own Chateau de la Fuente farm. Each size in the line is named for one of Ashton's anniversaries... the 23 Year Salute is the toro, 6 1/4 x 52. People call this a celebration cigar. I'd heard really good things and had never looked up what the flavor profile was supposed to be, so I went in with no expectations beyond the reputation. This was my first one.

The Setup

• Cigar: Ashton ESG 23 Year Salute, toro (6 1/4 x 52). Dominican Sun Grown wrapper from Chateau de la Fuente over Dominican binder and filler, made at Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cía in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Looks to be a double cap.
• Street price: about $30 a single online. Neptune had a single at $30.00 the day I checked; Famous and Cigars International only sell it by the five-pack and box, which works out to $27 to $28.60 a stick, and Atlantic's singles were sold out. MSRP is $30 a stick, $750 a box of 25.
• What I paid: I don't remember the number. I picked it up at a local shop while I was away on my anniversary in July, so figure shop price, which runs a little over street. My own money.
• Storage: the Herf coolidor at 69% RH since I brought it home, so a couple of months of rest.
• When/where: lit at 2:52 in the afternoon on the back deck. 86°, feels like 87, 58% humidity. There was a slight breeze out in the yard but nothing where I was sitting.
• Smoke time: about 90 minutes.
• Food beforehand: a couple of pieces of cheese pizza around 12:30, about two and a half hours before, with a San Pellegrino, water in between, and a few water crackers right before lighting to clean the palate.
• First cigar of the day, and my first in close to a week... I'd been sick most of the week and this was the one I came back on. Paired with water. Cut with the Xikar XO, clean cut, lit with the Guevara Lux single torch.

Light Up and First Third

The cold draw was very sweet, almost a plum fruit sweetness, and when I licked my lips afterward there was a lot of spice sitting on the wrapper. That combination had me expecting something interesting.

Toasting and lighting brought a spicy, creamy sweetness, and the first real draws settled into slightly spicy cream and cedar with a little nuttiness behind it. The cedar ran through all of it. On the retrohale there was zero spice, none, just a lightly sweet cream that was more a creamy feeling on the palate than a flavor, with a very light cedar and nuttiness underneath. On the palate it was simply very nice cream and cedar. I liked it right away.

It was very mild, in both strength and flavor. Cream in texture and cream in flavor, cedar on every single draw, very consistent, zero bitterness, and a very, very clean finish. Not what I was expecting, though I couldn't have told you what I was expecting. The draw was a touch too snug for my taste... not enough to run the draw tool down it, and the tool was sitting right there, but I wanted it more open. The burn started a little wavy and I rotated it.

Not long after, I started playing with cadence, and that's where this cigar lives. A single draw gives you the cream and cedar, not a super sweet cream, with a creaminess that lingers. A double draw gives you a fruitiness up front before the cream and cedar come in, and still no bitterness at all. Retrohaling an entire draw: not a hint of spice, a very light nuttiness, a light sweetness, and heavy cream. A super creamy smoke. I said out loud that if it went anything like this the whole way, I could understand why people like it.

Around the twenty-minute mark I said this was a very good cigar and that I needed to look up the street price. Then I looked it up. Thirty dollars a stick. That changed things for me.

Near the end of the first third I ashed it a little early because the burn line was crooked. Not wavy, crooked. Right before the ash, a single draw was cream, slightly sweet, cedar, and a hint of dustiness. A double draw was a very nice fruitiness, maybe raisin, then a slightly sweeter cream and cedar. Retrohaling the whole draw: basically zero spice, a little peanut shell, sweet cream, a little cedar. Very good.

The ash was tight, a little flaky, holding together really well. It came off completely clean and held together whole in the ashtray. With the ash off, the ligero was sitting dead center of the cigar. I touched it up, only to get the burn line even, because the cigar was good and I wanted to see if it got even better once it was burning straight. No drop in flavor after the ash or the touch-up. The one thing I wished for was a slightly more open draw.

Second Third

A little way into the second third the flavor was extremely consistent, and the way to get different flavors out of it was cadence. Single draws were still cream and cedar, sometimes with a little dustiness. Double draws were delicious: some kind of fruitiness I couldn't quite place, in the raisin or plum direction but I'm not sure that's what it was, then sweet cream, cedar, a touch of leather now, and a little spice on the tongue. The strength was still very mild. The flavors weren't punching me in the face, but I didn't have to search for them either. They were right there.

The retrohale had picked up a little spice, very comfortable, along with nuttiness, heavy cream, a little cedar, and a little leather. Smoke production was good. The draw was still tighter than I wanted, but not tight enough to grab the draw tool. I kept wishing I had a cup of coffee with me... this felt like it would go phenomenally well with coffee.

Midway through the second third the burn had gone from crooked to wavy, definitely wavy now, and the draw was still a little tight. Single draw: cream and cedar with a little leather mixed in. Double draw: that nice fruitiness, a touch of spice, cream, cedar, leather, and a tiny bit of coffee. The retrohale had spice on it now, but back-of-the-throat spice, nothing that burns your sinuses, very mild, with light nuttiness, light dustiness, cream, cedar, and leather. It left a slightly chalky feeling on the palate, just slightly. By far my favorite was the double draw, for that fruitiness. Delicious.

At the end of the second third the burn line was wavy and the ash was tight with a tiny bit of flake here and there. Not the prettiest ash in the world. Single draw: very light nuttiness, very light cream, very light cedar. Double draw: the fruitiness was still there but lighter now, less prominent, then cream, cedar, leather, and a very light nuttiness. Still very good. Retrohale: some spice, on the back of the throat rather than the sinuses, then light nuttiness, light cream, light cedar. A very creamy cigar all the way around.

The band came off beautifully here. It was glued very lightly to the side, and there was nothing wrong with the wrapper underneath. Then I touched it up again, because the burn line was crooked again.

Final Third

At the start of the final third a single draw was cedar and a little nuttiness. On a double draw the fruitiness was gone. In its place was a heavy, lightly roasted nuttiness, cedar, a little cream, and some leather. The retrohale had ramped up to a mild-plus spiciness with light cream, nuttiness, and cedar. The strength was climbing too, from the very mild of the first two thirds up toward medium.

Partway into the final third the draw finally opened up to just about where I'd wanted it the whole time.

About two thirds of the way through the final third, a single draw was mostly just cedar, not really anything else. A double draw was roasted nuttiness, cedar, the faintest bitterness, and a little leather. The retrohale had spice on the sinuses now as well as the back of the throat, and behind it mostly cedar and leather. The sweetness and the fruitiness were basically gone at this point, and that's a shame, because the middle of this cigar was phenomenal. Fruitiness and cream and cedar, really, really good, and now it was mostly cedar.

I touched it up one more time in here, the third time, after the last ash.

At the end, right before I put it down, a single draw was slightly wet tea leaves and mostly cedar. A double draw was pretty much straight cedar with a tiny bit of nuttiness on a very short finish. The retrohale was spice on the sinuses and the back of the throat, then straight cedar, with a touch of cream on a short finish. It finished a medium-strength cigar. Never full, not close.

One thing I noticed the entire way through: the finish is incredibly clean. It doesn't leave much of anything lingering. You get your flavor, it goes away, and it leaves what feels like a clean palate for the next draw. There was a touch more I could have burned through, but I set it down at 4:23, about ninety minutes after the light. The burn was a little better at that point, with a small fingernail on the back side that hadn't burned properly.

Construction

• Wrapper: medium brown with a reddish cast, not toothy at all, a little veiny, a decently clean-looking leaf. Looks to be a double cap. Well-packed foot. No issues under the band.
• Draw: a touch too snug on the cold draw and through the first two thirds. Never tight enough to pull the draw tool, and it was sitting right next to me. It finally opened to where I wanted it partway into the final third.
• Burn: a little wavy off the light, crooked by the end of the first third, definitely wavy through the second third, and crooked again at the end of it. Three touch-ups, one after each ash. No relights. A small fingernail on the back side never burned in.
• Ash: tight and a little flaky. The first ash came off completely clean and held together whole in the tray, with the ligero dead center. The later ashes were tight with a bit of flake here and there, not the prettiest.
• Smoke output: good.
• Band: glued very lightly to the side and came off clean at the end of the second third.

Bottom Line

The first two thirds of this cigar were very good, and the middle was phenomenal. Cream in both texture and flavor, cedar on every draw, and a plum or raisin fruitiness that only showed up on a double draw and made the whole thing worth paying attention to. Zero bitterness for an hour. A finish so clean it kept handing me a fresh palate. It's a very mild cigar for most of its length, and I don't mean that as a knock... the flavors were right there without any searching.

Then the final third went flat. Not a crash, not a dip into something unpleasant, just the sweetness and fruit leaving and cedar taking over everything until it was cedar on the single draw, cedar on the double, and cedar on the retrohale. And the construction was never quite there. A snug draw for two thirds that only opened up when the cigar was almost done. A burn line that went crooked three times, and three touch-ups to fix it. None of that is a disaster on its own. All of it together, on a thirty-dollar cigar, adds up.

That's the whole problem with this one. When I said "this is a very good cigar" I hadn't looked up the price yet. When I did, I said out loud that it changed things, and it did. A creamy, mild Dominican with a great middle and a babysat burn has to be judged against what thirty dollars buys elsewhere. At thirty, I'm comparing it to a Padrón 1926 40th at the same money that burned itself perfectly and only stumbled in the last quarter inch, and that one landed a Five-Pack. This one had more strikes against it for the same price.

Would I smoke it again? Hand-Me-One (2/4). If someone handed me one I'd smoke it gladly, and I'd sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy the second third for exactly what it is. I wouldn't spend my own money on five of these to keep in the humidor, because the final third and the construction don't hold up at this price. If the middle had lasted to the end and the burn had taken care of itself, we'd be having a different conversation.

Best for: a mild, creamy afternoon smoke with a cup of coffee, for someone who likes to play with cadence and doesn't mind touching up a burn line. If you're buying a celebration cigar and the price isn't a factor for you, the middle of this one is worth the trip. If the price is a factor, there are better ways to spend thirty dollars.

My scale, one question only... would I spend my own money on this again? 4 Box Buy (box on hand, always) / 3 Five-Pack (yes, a few live in the humidor) / 2 Hand-Me-One (wouldn't buy it, wouldn't turn one down) / 1 Not Even Free (I'd rather smoke nothing).

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