Cigar Review: Room 101 San Andrés 213

I didn’t know what to think when Camacho announced a partnership with jewelery maker Matt Booth in 2009. Camacho would be making cigars to be sold under Booth’s Room 101 brand, named after the torture room in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Four years later, I’ve enjoyed quite a few of the Camacho-made Room 101 cigars, particularly the Conjura and Namakubi. I found this latest Room 101 San Andrés the way I find many cigars, by simply walking into my local cigar shop and asking, “What’s new?” The answer on this particular day was the Room 101 San Andrés, which was released last month.

By my count, San Andrés is the fifth Room 101 blend, created by Room 101-creator Matt Booth and Camacho Cigars. It’s the third regular release joining the original Room 101 and the Connecticut-wrapped Namakubi, while the OSOK (One Shot One Kill) and the Conjura are limited releases. The result is a more affordable cigar that comes in five sizes selling in the wallet-friendly $5-7 range.

For this review I lit up three of the corona-sized 213s (5.5 x 44) which cost me just under $6 each. The cigar features a San Andrés wrapper grown by the Turrent family in Mexico. The largely vein-free, milk-chocolate wrapper surrounds a Honduran Corojo binder and Corojo and Criollo filler from Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

It’s a serious departure from Room 101’s previous releases, but very pleasant with chewy peanut butter, cocoa, and a slightly spicy cedar core. As the cigar evolves, coffee becomes apparent and more spice comes forward towards the second half of this hour-long smoke.

With perfect construction and a reasonable price tag, the 213 is a very enjoyable medium- to full-bodied cigar. That combination earns this Room 101 San Andrés vitola an impressive rating of four stogies out of five.

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–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys