The Stogie Guys

Single malt scotch whisky tends to be aged in bourbon and sherry casks, which makes this relatively new addition to the Balvenie line particularly interesting. After a period of aging in a traditional oak bourbon barrel, this 14-year-old single malt is finished in rum casks.

Introduced in 2010 as a U.S.-only release, the 14 Year Caribbean Cask Balvenie sells for around $60. It’s a bit more expensive than their 12 year Doublewood (an excellent value) but similar in price to Balvenie’s 15 year Single Barrel.

The whisky pours a golden straw color that’s not as dark as I would expect. The nose is where the unique character of the Caribbeam Cask starts to shine through as citrus and tropical fruits join with toffee and muted oak.

Once you get down to sipping your dram, you’ll find burnt sugar, a bit of smokiness, oak, dried fruit, and maltiness. It has a great roundness on the palate, not heavy, but crisp and lively. The finish is medium-long with both sweet and dry flavors.

A very good single malt, the lightness surprised me, but it wasn’t a bad thing. It’s the type of Scotch that goes well with a milder cigar, something with a Connecticut shade wrapper and Dominican filler (or a milder Cuban like an H. Upmann). No matter the cigar, the Balvenie 14 Year Caribbean Cask Single Malt is a tasty whisky with it’s own character that leaves a hint of the tropical influence of its production.

–Patrick S

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.”

Erik Espinosa’s new factory in Estelí, “La Zona,” is now the home of 601, Murcielago, and Mi Barrio. It’s also producing “Espinosa,” which was released at the 2012 IPCPR Trade Show, a Nicarauan puro featuring a medium brown Habano wrapper. The cigar starts off a bit hot with a sawdusty edge, but very quickly becomes more balanced and pleasant. At its core, it’s a medium-bodied smoke with lots of dry wood and hints of spice, hay, and earth. Construction is good and the price ($6) is reasonable.

Verdict = Hold.

–Patrick S

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.”

I remember a lot of cigar enthusiasts being, well, enthusiastic about the value-priced CAO La Traviata Maduro line when it was introduced in 2010. Since, I haven’t heard much about the blend, which features an Ecuadorian wrapper around a Cameroon binder and filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. So when I came across a Luminoso (4.5 x 50) in my humidor that had been resting for about two years, I couldn’t help but fire it up. What I found was a cigar with excellent construction and a surprisingly spicy profile of red pepper, leather, cocoa, nut, and warm tobacco. You can’t argue with that for $5.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Bourbon often gets more costly (and usually also better) as you go from large production, to small batch bourbons, to single barrel expressions. Saint George Spirits—a small “artisan distiller” in Alameda, California, that’s been in operation for 30 years—took a different approach when it created its Breaking & Entering bourbon whiskey.

Dubbed a “super-bourbon,” B&E is the result of blending approximately 80 different barrels of bourbons from different sources all ranging from five to eight years in age. Through what they call “barrel thieving,” Saint George selects their favorite barrels from various Kentucky distilleries, then blends them together.

The result, according to their website, is “greater than the sum of [its] parts…a criminally delicious bourbon whiskey shaped by a Kentucky pedigree and California ingenuity.” At around $40 a bottle, I figured it was worth a try.

The first striking element of B&E is its deep bronze color. Even more notable is the nose: sweet fruit and lacking in spice, it has an almost cherry cola aspect to it.

When you finally get down to the business of tasting this “super-bourbon,” you find a chewy combination of corn, moonshine, fig, oak, toast, and caramel. It’s nicely balanced and very complex. The finish is bright and clean.

While it’s different from many other bourbons being made these days, it’s a winner in my book. Dink it neat and you’ll find a sweet, complex whiskey that goes down smooth.

It pairs very well with both the Honduran puro Camacho Corojo or the multi-country blend (super-cigar?) E.P. Carrillo Short Run 2010. But I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many good cigars that don’t go well with this versatile bourbon.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Yesterday, my colleague reviewed the J.P.G. Little Havana Overruns Corona, a budget-priced cigar by super-blender Jose Pepin Garcia made for retailer Holt’s. Today, I look at a cigar with a similar pedigree and value-oriented price: L’Atelier Trocadéro Cambon.

L’Atelier is a new company headed by Pete Johnson of Tatuaje fame. While Tatuaje (and all of Pete’s other brands up until this summer) fall under the “Pete Johnson Havana Cellars” umbrella, L’Atelier is a new company, with a new lineup of cigars at various price points ranging from the Behike-esque L’Atelier to the value-priced Trocadéro and El Suelo.

Trocadéro’s biggest selling point is it’s price, which is around $3 per cigar when bought by the 20-count bundle, and only fifty cents or so more individually. The cigar is blended by Jaime Garcia for Pete Johnson and made at Garcia’s factory in Estelí, Nicaragua. It features an Ecuadorian Habano rosado wrapper, a Connecticut broadleaf binder, and Nicaraguan long-filler tobaccos.

Trocadéro comes in three sizes:  Honore (5.75 x 56), Montaigne (6.25 x 60), and Cambon (5.25 x 52). I smoked three of the Cambon format for this review, each from a five-pack I purchased online for $16.

The cigar is medium-bodied with simplistic damp earth and roasted nut flavors. Towards the end, there’s some coffee and cinnamon notes, but the damp flavor holds the cigar back. Construction is excellent, and shows none of the pitfalls that $3 cigars sometimes suffer from. The burn was even, the ash stable, and the draw easy.

So is this the magical cigar that costs $3 but tastes like a cigar two or three times the price? Unfortunately not. In fact, when it comes to $3-4 budget cigars made by the Garcias, I prefer Ambos Mundos, Tatuaje Serie P, or Benchmade. Ultimately the L’Atelier Trocadéro is what it says it is: a medium-bodied, value-priced, well-made cigar that’s pleasant enough, but hardly complex or distinguished. That earns the L’Atelier Trocadéro Cambon a rating of three stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick S

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.”

Recently introduced, this new Nicaraguan puro is made for 262 Cigars at Plasencia’s factory in Estelí. According to a press release, the cigar features “a wrapper from the Jalapa Valley, a double binder of both Jalapa and Estelí tobaccos, and a rare combination of Estelí, Condega, and Jalapa seco, viso, and ligero for the filler.” The resulting cigar costs about $8 and  is earthy with coffee, chocolate, and roasted flavors. It’s full-bodied and well-made.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

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.”

Early this year, my colleague gave the Toro in this line a sterling four-stogie rating. The 5-inch, 50-ring gauge Robusto is right there with it. Blended by Don Pepin Garcia, this smoke has some of his familiar touches, such as spice and pepper. But it’s no one-dimensional cigar; the array of flavors and changes create a terrific smoke. El Tiante cigars aren’t available everywhere, so don’t miss the chance to try one when you get it.

Verdict = Buy.

–George E

photo credit: Stogie Guys