Perez-Carrillo Pledge Prequel Review

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

Filed under: Burn Issues · Cigar Bands · Dominican Republic · Ecuador · Tight Draw · Habano · Nicaragua · Retrohale · The Draw · Bitter Cigar?

Verdict: The Perez-Carrillo Pledge Prequel is a Hand-Me-One (2/4) at about $13 street... the first third was bitter, tight on the draw and wavy on the burn with almost nothing on the retrohale, the second third pulled it back to a cigar I'd smoke if someone handed me one, and I never got to the third. I had to put it down at the end of the second third and didn't get back to it, so everything here stops there.

Brand

Perez-Carrillo (Casa Carrillo)

Line

Pledge

Vitola

Prequel (Robusto)

Size

5 x 50

Wrapper

Connecticut Habano

Binder

Ecuadorian

Filler

Nicaraguan

Made in

Dominican Republic

Factory

Tabacalera La Alianza

Street price

$13

Pledge is the line E.P. Carrillo launched in 2020, and this size, the Prequel, is the one Cigar Aficionado named its Cigar of the Year that year. It's a Connecticut-grown Habano wrapper over an Ecuadorian binder and Nicaraguan filler, rolled at the family's Tabacalera La Alianza factory in the Dominican Republic. The company renamed itself Casa Carrillo in 2025, so you'll see both names on the shelf. This is the second Perez-Carrillo cigar reviewed here in two weeks, after the La Historia Silk.

The Setup

• Cigar: Perez-Carrillo Pledge Prequel (5 x 50), Connecticut Habano wrapper, Ecuadorian binder, Nicaraguan filler. Tabacalera La Alianza, Dominican Republic
• Street price: about $13 a single online. Five-packs run $61 to $64 at the big shops and the box of 20 lists at $268, so the math lands at $12 to $13.40 a stick depending on where you buy
• What I paid: about $13, my own money. As best I can reconstruct it, this came from a local shop visit in July of 2025. The card receipt is there, the itemized part isn't, so no exact number
• Storage: the Herf coolidor at 69% RH, about 14 months of rest
• When/where: lit at 8:45pm on the back deck. 75°, feels like 75, 71% humidity, no wind at all
• Food beforehand: steak and chicken kebabs at quarter to six, so three hours before, with nothing on them but the seasoning. Water with dinner. Far enough back that I don't think it moved the palate either way
• First cigar of the day, paired with water. Cut with the Xikar XO, straight cut. I picked this one on purpose because I didn't want a cigar that was going to take an hour and a half

Light Up and First Third

Very dark wrapper, very wrinkly, and a triple cap. I went back and forth on double or triple for a second and it's a triple. There's a gold ribbon foot band, and my first question with any foot band is whether it's glued to itself or to the wrapper. This one came off clean, which is the right answer.

Cold draw was good, and all I got off it was sweet tobacco.

Toasting and lighting: very dark chocolate, a little nuttiness, and spice. Then the first real draws, and I did a double draw, gave me a decent amount of bitterness, leather, and spice. The bitterness went away quickly. It didn't linger and it didn't build, which is the difference between a cigar that's a little bitter and a cigar that never gives your palate a break. I made a note that it didn't feel like the second kind. The retrohale was baking spice with not a lot behind it. Decently spicy without blowing your sinuses off, then a tiny bit of leather you had to go searching for. Smoke production looked above average.

A quarter inch in, the burn line was already noticeably wavy. Not unserviceable, not touch-up territory yet, but I started rotating it and watching it. A single draw was leather, coffee, and some black licorice, and that was about it. A double draw gave the same flavors with a little more intensity, plus that bitterness right on the front of the draw that faded about halfway through the flavor and then left. The retrohale was black pepper, a touch of leather, and then nothing. No other flavor on the retro at all, which is odd.

Around here I noticed the draw had gotten more snug than it was at the light. My draw tool was sitting right next to me, and it wasn't time for it yet, but it was on my mind. I also have to correct what I said about smoke production: it's above average on a double draw. On a single draw it's slightly under, and it takes two draws to get the smoke up.

Halfway through the first third, a single draw was black licorice first, then leather, then a mild coffee. My usual double draw was an almost burned peanut flavor, then dark black coffee and leather, and then something like black pepper that isn't a flavor so much as a feeling on the sides of the tongue. The retrohale was black pepper, a very mild leather, and maybe a tiny bit of cream with that leather. Mostly pepper, and then almost nothing, except that the little bit of leather and cream did hang out on the palate afterward.

The burn stayed wavy the whole first third, consistently slow on one of the thinner sides, and rotating it didn't fix it. I decided I'd touch it up at the end of the third and not before.

At the end of the first third the flavor was basically the same, with one change: the very beginning of a double draw had a dustiness to it along with the bitterness, and the whole thing was tilting toward earthy. More earth than leather and coffee at that point. The ash was decently tight and flaky. If it had been burning evenly it looked like it would have stacked really well, but it wasn't burning evenly, so it didn't. I ashed it and touched it up. The draw was also still getting tighter, so I went ahead and used the draw tool, because I didn't want to spend the rest of the cigar working for every puff.

Second Third

Right after the touch-up, the first thing I got was a sweet nuttiness that went away almost as fast as it showed up, and then leather and black coffee came right in behind it. No earthiness, which had been creeping in at the end of the first third.

The draw was substantially better. One odd thing about the draw tool: going in, the inside of this cigar felt soft. The tool went in very easily, and I don't have an explanation for that, because the cigar wasn't dry. It came out of the Herf at 69% after close to a year. The draw still wasn't perfect after the tool, still on the tight side, but it had been getting consistently tighter and tighter before I used it, and afterward it was a cigar I could smoke without thinking about it.

The retrohale here was a heavy amount of black pepper, nuttiness, leather, a tiny bit of cream, and coffee. No earthiness on the retro either. The pepper is substantial. There's no way I could retro this whole cigar if I wanted to without sneezing or my eyes watering like crazy. Smoke production had slowly dropped off through the first third without me really noticing, and after the tool it was back to above average on a single or a double draw.

A little further in, and this third was better than the first, no question. A single draw was a sweet nuttiness (I couldn't pin down which kind, and I wonder whether I was reading it as sweet just because there'd been so little sweetness in the cigar up to then), leather, black coffee, and then that black pepper feeling on the sides of the tongue again. Maybe it's earthiness, maybe it's pepper, I couldn't decide, but whichever it is, it doesn't build. A double draw brought the black licorice back, gone quickly, and then coffee and leather fighting for the lead right behind it.

The retrohale was heavy black pepper again, and I was only pushing about half the smoke through my nose that I normally would. After the pepper, nuttiness, decently pronounced, and nothing else. It's a different profile than the regular draw, and a strange one: the first third's retro was pepper and then gone, and now it's pepper and nuttiness and then gone.

The secondary band was glued well, but only to itself, and came off completely clean.

That's where it ended. I had to put it down at the end of the second third and wasn't able to come back to it, so there's no final third and no final-third notes.

Construction

• Wrapper: very dark, very wrinkly, triple cap. The gold foot ribbon came off clean
• Draw: good on the cold draw, then tightened steadily through the first third until I used the draw tool at the end of it. Substantially better after, still not perfect. The inside felt soft going in, which I can't explain on a cigar that wasn't dry
• Burn: wavy from a quarter inch in, consistently slow on one thin side, and rotating didn't fix it. One touch-up at the end of the first third. I never got far enough to know if it needed a second
• Ash: decently tight but flaky. It looked like it would have stacked well on an even burn
• Smoke output: above average on a double draw, a little under on a single. Faded through the first third, came back after the draw tool
• Band: the Pledge secondary band came off completely clean, glued only to itself

Bottom Line

Two different cigars in one stick. The first third was a fight: bitterness on the front of every double draw, a burn that went wavy almost immediately and stayed that way, a draw that kept tightening, and a retrohale that was pepper and then nothing. The flavors that were there, leather, coffee, black licorice, weren't bad. They were just under a lot of construction noise, and the earthiness that started creeping in at the end of the third had me thinking about whether I wanted to finish it.

Then I touched it up, opened the draw, and the second third was a different experience. Sweet nuttiness on the front, leather and black coffee behind it, a retrohale with real pepper and real nuttiness on it, and smoke production back where it should be. Still tight, still peppery enough that I couldn't retro it freely, but a cigar I was enjoying instead of managing.

On time: a little over half an hour got me to the end of the second third, so the whole cigar would have run 55 minutes, maybe an hour tops. That's about what I wanted from it going in.

Would I smoke it again? Hand-Me-One. If the first third had been the whole story this would be a Not Even Free, and I'm not smoking that first third again, not even for free. The second third pulled it up a full tier on its own, to the point where if you hand me one, I'll smoke it. I never got to the final third and I'm not going to pretend I did. Even if it had been as good as the second third, that holds the cigar at a 2, it doesn't lift it to a Five-Pack, and if it had dipped, this is a 1. For this stick on this night, a 2. I'd try one again if someone handed it to me. I'm not spending my own money on it.

Best for: someone who already likes the leather, coffee, and black pepper lane and doesn't mind working a cigar for the first twenty minutes. Keep a draw tool within reach. If you're buying it because of the Cigar of the Year sticker, understand that's the 2020 vintage they were scoring, not necessarily the one in the humidor at your local shop.

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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