The Stogie Guys

In my opinion, not only is bourbon an excellent spirit to pair with cigars, but I’m constantly impressed by the value it offers at all price points.

While good single malt seems to start at $50 (if you disagree, please leave suggestions in the comments), good bourbon can be had for quite a bit less. If you’re willing to spend $50 or more there there are some really special bourbons available (take a look at my recent Guide to Bourbon series for some recommendations), but it isn’t necessary to spend that much.

The $25-30 range offers excellent bourbons that can be enjoyed by connoisseurs, and it’s also an great starting place for someone just exploring all that bourbon has to offer. To that end, here are some of my favorite offerings available in most places for under $30:

Elmer T. Lee – Elmer T. Lee created Blanton’s ($45-50), the highly acclaimed nine-year-old original single barrel bourbon. Later he created his own single barrel bourbon, which sells for $30. Sadly, Elmer isn’t around anymore – though he hand-selected the barrels for his bourbon until his passing – but this is still an excellent spirit. Basically just Blanton’s but a few years younger, it’s full of sweetness with body and balance provided by dried fruit and just enough woody spice.

Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage – Evan Williams took Single Barrel bourbon to a new level with it’s vintage release, bottled every year after nine years of barrel aging. Each year has its own character, but they have in common a butterscotch characteristic with oak and a bit of spice. The 2003 is out now.

W.L. Weller 12 Year – The oldest sub-$30 bourbon I know, this uses wheat instead of rye as a secondary grain, and the result is a delicious combination of sweetness and woodiness. These are the same characteristics that make Pappy Van Winkle one of the most sought-after bourbons, but it’s only a small fraction of the price.

John E. Fitzgerald Larceny Bourbon – A new offering made by Heaven Hill, which also makes Evan Williams, Larceny (like Weller) is a wheat bourbon, which means it has plenty of sweetness. There’s also a lively combination of toffee, cinnamon, and fruit. It’s 92-proof and around $28.

Eagle Rare Single Barrel 10 Year – Were I required to select only one of these, I’d have no problem selecting Eagle Rare 10 Year Single Barrel. Made by Buffalo Trace from the same juice that makes up George T. Stagg, it has lots of char, oak, caramel, and guts. It’s the perfect combination of balance, nuance, and power.

Honorable Mention: Bulleit Rye – Not actually a bourbon (rye is the majority grain as opposed to corn), this is my favorite value in rye. It uses a 95% rye mashbill and has a flavor of red fruit, minty spice, and just the right amount of oak and syrupy sweetness. If you want to discover the difference between bourbon and rye, this is a tasty first step.

Still getting into bourbon? This is a list that will give you a crash course in all the most American spirit can offer. And it will show you that excellent bourbon can be had at a very reasonable price.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Officially launched in January, but formalized at last year’s convention, Sindicato is a new company founded by a group of veteran retailers. The group starts with a customer base that’s the envy of any new cigar company.

Heading up this “syndicate” is Abe Dababneh of Smoke Inn. He is joined by Dan Jenuwine (of Quality Fresh Cigars in Michigan), Gary Pesh (of Old Virginia Tobacco in Virginia), Robert Roth (of Nice Ash Cigars in New York and Pennsylvania), and Jeff Borysiewicz (Corona Cigar Company in Orlando). Their stores alone would be top targets for any new cigar line looking for quality retailers.

Three brands comprise the Sindicato lineup. Casa Bella is a “premium bundle” smoke from the Dominican Republic with prices around $2 per cigar. Hex, my favorite, is sold as “a refined medium- to full-bodied cigar”. And Affinity is an Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapped blend with a mild profile. (StogieGuys.com was also told an eponymous “Sindicato” cigar is currently in the works.)

Affinity comes in six formats: Churchill, Gran Toro, Belicoso, Toro, Corona, and Robusto. The Belicoso measures 6.1 inches long with a ring gauge of 52 and a price of about $7. It’s a pale cigar with a clean, delicate wrapper that’s prone to tiny cracks if you aren’t careful. The sharply pointed cap clips uneventfully to reveal a smooth draw, and the foot boasts pre-light notes of sweet hay and caramel.

Setting an even light across the wrapper, the Nicaraguan binder, and the blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican filler tobaccos, a buttery profile of cream and nut emerges. The finish is short, tangy, and just a little spicy with a slight bitterness. Each puff coats the palate with silky, oily smoke. The body is decidedly in the mild spectrum.

I won’t call the flavor “papery,” though some may find the Belicoso to be too mellow. I’ve always enjoyed milder smokes as long as they back up their lack of power with creaminess and complexity. To be blunt, while Affinity may have character, the samples I smoked for this review were on the verge of being too mild for my personal taste.

That said, the Sindicato Affinity Belicoso brings a decent flavor to the table along with perfect combustion qualities—straight burn, solid ash, good smoke production, and consistently easy draw. Fans of mild-bodied cigars will find it to be a solid buy. In my book, it earns three stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief verdict on a single cigar of “buy,” “hold,” or “sell.”

CAO’s newest offering is much more than a marketing scheme focused on muscle cars and pinup girls. Combining a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper with a Habano Connecticut binder and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos, Flathead is a wonderful, balanced blend that has plenty of body yet little spice. The result is a rounded profile of cocoa, leather, and cream, and the physical properties are excellent. If you haven’t gotten around to trying Flathead yet, you’re missing out. The V554 Camshaft (5.5 x 54) is well worth the asking price of $7-8.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Last week I attended W. Curtis Draper’s Little Puff, a fantastic event in DC that raises lots of money for good causes. First and foremost, the event highlights the generosity of the cigar community. (After last year’s event, Little Puff had topped $600,000 raised for charity.)

But in addition to charity and generosity, fine cigars, food, and drink are featured. Like many cigar events, attendees are given a card with the names of all the cigar makers in attendance, who then punch the card when you pick up your cigar from their table.

The result is a lot of cigars. Some were new releases: Fratello, La Gloria Serie R Black, CLE Plus, Drew Estate’s Nica Rustica, just to name a few, all of which I’m looking forward to.

But I actually enjoyed some of the other cigars more. It isn’t that they are necessarily better, but these are cigars I don’t normally smoke because, writing for Stogie Guys, I tend to spend a lot of my smoking time trying the latest releases.

I can’t remember the last time I smoked a regular old Padrón Maduro, but lighting one up the next day I was reminded what an excellent cigar it is, especially given the price. It’s a cigar that was a staple in my rotation when I first got into cigars, but now I maybe smoke one a year.

The same goes for the Don Pepin Garcia Blue, La Flor Dominicana Cameroon Cabinet, Tatuaje Regios Reserva, Alec Bradley Prensado, Fuente Chateau Sun Grown, Oliva Connecticut, and La Aroma de Cuba (original blend). Cigars I don’t frequently light up, even though each is well made and quite good.

It’s a reminder not to get too focused on the latest and greatest. You’re not buying a smartphone where technology becomes quickly out of date. It’s more like music. Sure there’s some good music coming out today; but sometimes it’s better to tune into the classic rock station for dependable favorites that remind you of good times from the past.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Arturo Fuente’s Solaris. Tatuaje’s Anarchy and Apocalypse. My Father’s El Hijo. Padrón’s 1964 Anniversary SI-15. Room 101’s Big Delicious. What do these have in common?

They’re all part of the Microblend Series that’s soldby Smoke Inn, a Florida-based cigar retailer. The Microblend Series is inspired by the growing popularity of U.S. microbreweries, harnessing how “limited production quantities allow for a greater emphasis to be placed on quality and consistency,” according to the Smoke Inn website.

With that inspiration, it was only a matter of time before Smoke Inn partnered with Manuel Quesada to put new twist on one of Quesada’s most popular lines: Oktoberfest. Just in time for the German festival, Smoke Inn is now shipping the Oktoberfest Dunkel, named for the German word for “dark” that’s typically used to describe a dark lager.

“In the spirit of Oktoberfest, the Dunkel uses the same binders and fillers of the regular Oktoberfest release, with the exception of the wrapper,” reads a Smoke Inn press release. “A very select broadleaf maduro wrapper envelops this rich cigar with a slight underlying Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper at the foot, thus giving the appearance of a dark, rich Dunkel beer with a savory, foamy head.”

Dunkel is sold in one size (6 x 54) at a cost of $8.95 per single, or $134.25 per box of 15. It’s obviously a unique-looking cigar, which may be why Quesada chose to keep the band exactly the same as the regular Oktoberfest blend. Aside from the different wrapper at the foot, Dunkel’s other aesthetic properties include a tremendously oily exterior, pungent pre-light notes of earth and cocoa, and a dense, firm feel.

The initial profile is reminiscent of the original Quesada Oktoberfest with dark cherry, burnt coffee, and an occasional bitter bite. Sweet notes are more apparent on the aftertaste than each individual puff. But during the outset of the smoke—the one covered in the Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper—the texture is very creamy.

Spice and leather take center stage once the cigar passes into the broadleaf maduro phase. Here the Dunkel becomes more full-bodied with a little more nicotine kick. Perhaps not surprisingly, though, the creaminess prevails, rendering Dunkel one of those flavorful smokes with ample spice and complexity yet a creamy undertone.

All of the Quesada Oktoberfest Dunkels I smoked for this review exhibited admirable physical properties, and all were, quite frankly, a joy to smoke. While I’m no fan of pairing beer with cigars—as I’ve written before—the quality of this smoke is undeniable regardless of pairing. That earns it a solid rating of four stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

A surefire way to get a heated discussion going is to bring up the issue of aging.

Everything from the basic definition — It’s aging after one year. No, that’s still resting; aging starts after three years. Well, I think two years is when it starts. — to which cigars benefit most from the process is a veritable minefield.

Over the years, I’ve looked quite a bit into aging, including talking with some pre-eminent cigar collectors and reading about it from a scientific standpoint, and, frankly, I’m more convinced than ever that there is no hard and fast answer.

Like most things involving cigars, aging is a matter of personal taste. I do know that most makers of good cigars don’t expect you to age their sticks. They use well-aged and fermented tobaccos and attempt to ship their products so customers get them at their peak.

I’m talking about non-Cubans. There, I don’t believe this was the case some years back when Cuba was scrambling to meet demand and exercising poor judgment about nearly everything, from the tobacco being used to quality control. Nowadays, I think things are better.

If you want to age cigars, feel free. About the only thing I can say with any degree of certainty is that you’ll rarely, if ever, find that time makes a poor cigar, especially one with low-grade, badly fermented, or un-aged tobaccos, anything other than an older, poor cigar.

My advice, for what it’s worth, is that if you want to age by the box if possible. That way, you can sample the cigars periodically to see whether they’re changing and have a good chance of catching them near the peak. It’s also a good idea to keep notes at each stage of the process on cigars you’re aging. You’ll find that helpful not only with the cigars at hand but in selecting future cigars for aging.

At any rate, I suggest smoking rather than fighting.

–George E

photo credit: Stogie Guys