Stogie Reviews: Rocky Patel Vintage 1992 Petit Corona

6 Nov 2008

Nearly two years ago my colleague gave the Rocky Patel Vintage 1992 Torpedo a stellar five stogie rating. Since I’ve smoked and enjoyed many Vintage 1992s over the years, this rating came as no surprise.

But among the many Vintage ’92 cigars I’ve enjoyed, I can’t recall smoking any Petit Coronas until the three I had for this review. At 4.5 inches with a 44 ring gauge, it’s a great vitola for cold weather, which just happens to be hitting the Washington, DC area.

The dark, oily, and slightly splotchy ten-year-old Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper surrounds a Honduran broadleaf binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan filler that, according to Rocky Patel, has been accumulating flavor and character for seven years.

Just a note on the wrapper: The “1992″ on the band seems to confuse many people. It’s a reference to the year the wrapper was first produced in 2002, at which time the wrapper was ten years old. Since then, the wrappers have continued to be 10 years old, meaning not from a crop of wrapper tobacco from 1992. This has led critics, including JR Cigar’s Lew Rothman, to criticize Rocky Patel’s Vintage lines as misleading marketing.

The sharply box-pressed cigar is extra firm to the touch, but the draw is perfect. The one construction problem is that even when I use the sharpest Xikar cutter, one of the three petit coronas had some slight cracking near the head.

As for flavor, I noticed the same rich, dark coffee taste with hints of chocolate, roasted almond, and subtle pepper that I’ve noticed in larger formats of the Vintage 1992. What I didn’t find was variation or evolution of the flavors from the first puff to the last. That’s a common feature for cigars as small as this, as the size makes complexity even more challenging.

As noted above, the draw is particularly impressive given how tightly packed this little cigar is. The burn is a bit uneven at times, but never requiring step two of our fix that uneven burn tip. The ash was study, even if it didn’t hold all that long.

The Petit Corona runs around $6 apiece, or even less online or by the box. You might not call is a great bargain, but it is a fair price for a little stick that packs a big flavor punch and will last 30-40 minutes.

All told, this is a very impressive cigar. Compared to the five stogie-rated Torpedo, it may lose a little for lack of complexity and slight construction flaws, but that still leaves it with a solid rating of four and a half stogies out of five.