The 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.”

After a hiatus that kept Dona Flor away from the U.S. market for years, the Brazilian company is back on American soil with a variety of lines, including Seleção and Puro Mata Fina. Included in Dona Flor’s portfolio is the CC Bahia, which is comprised of a golden Connecticut shade wrapper around mata fina and mata norte leaves. The Robusto (5 x 52) retails for $7.75 and has a nutty, creamy, slightly spicy taste that’s devoid of the chocolate or depth I was expecting from a cigar packed with Brazilian tobacco. It isn’t a bad cigar, but it’s hard to be overly enthusiastic about it given the number of fine Connecticuts on the market that sell for less. I guess you could say I’m on the fence.

Verdict = Hold.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

By now, most of us know that the new Iconic Leaf Cigar Co. was “founded by two very well-known and well respected legends in the cigar industry” who have “chosen to keep their identities private in a pursuit to make the very best premium boutique cigars that can be found anywhere in the world without the influence of their names.”

I’ll resist the temptation to guess the identities of the two individuals behind Iconic Leaf. Rather, I’ll keep this review focused on what we know for sure about the company and its first release, Recluse.

Available in ten box-pressed sizes, Recluse debuted this summer at the 2012 IPCPR Trade Show in Orlando. It boasts a Brazilian maduro wrapper, a Cameroon binder, and filler tobaccos from the Dominican Republic—all of which go through eight fermentation cycles. Recluse is made under the direction of Don Jose Rafael in the Leyendas Cubanas factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

“Every Recluse is rolled in the old Cuban tradition of tubing, which is taking each filler leaf and rolling it into a tube instead of folding it,” reads the Iconic Leaf website. “Once all the filler leaves are each individually rolled into a tube shape, they are brought together and surrounded with the binder. This is time-consuming but creates an effortless draw and an unparalleled smoking experience. We then box press each cigar to compress the leaf and reduce air space.”

I smoked two Recluse Toros for this review, both of which were sent to me by Iconic Leaf. The Toro size measures 6.25 inches with a ring gauge of 50. It carries an MSRP of $7.80 and has a strikingly mottled wrapper that’s oily and devoid of thick veins. The cigar is soft to the touch with pre-light notes of milk chocolate and damp earth.

Establishing an even light is very easy. Once it’s burning, I can instantly appreciate the time and effort that was put into the tubing of the filler tobaccos, as the result of this painstaking process is a wonderful draw that yields bountiful tufts of thick smoke. The Toro’s other physical properties are also excellent, including a straight burn and a solid ash.

Construction is important, but flavor and texture are paramount. Fortunately, Recluse does very well in these categories as well. The smoke is cool and airy with a powdery mouthfeel. The taste is well-balanced with notes of cocoa, leather, cinnamon spice, and creamy nut. The flavor doesn’t change much from light to nub.

And nub it I did. While Iconic Leaf may have sent me the two Toros to make this review possible, I will definitely be purchasing more in the near future for my own enjoyment. This is one of the most impressive new cigars of 2012 (at least among those I’ve tried to date), worthy of a rare rating of four and half 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.”

Released by Pete Johnson last year, the 7th Capa Especial (5.9 x 46) boasts a rustic Sumatra wrapper around Nicaraguan tobaccos. Creamy nut, espresso, black pepper spice, and a bit of cocoa on the finish characterize the profile, which tends toward the full-bodied spectrum. No doubt there’s a lot going on here in terms of complexity and balance, and the physical properties—including a straight burn and a solid gray ash—are predictably excellent. You can’t go wrong with this cigar, which runs about $8-9.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Almost everyone has a story about the time (usually in their younger days) when they did too many tequila shots and swore they’d never drink the stuff again. Most seem to return to tequila later, albeit likely in smaller quantities of higher quality tequila.

Most people, if they’ve heard of mezcal at all, think of it as bad tequila. The reputation comes because inexpensive mezcal often includes a worm at the bottom of the bottle, a marketing gimmick designed, one can only imagine, to attract frat boys on spring break in Mexico who prove their toughness by drinking poor quality mezcal. But mezcal need not be harsh, cheap, or gimmicky, and Wahaka Mezcal is proof.

Mezcal, for the uninitiated, is similar to tequila. Actually, technically all tequila is mezcal, but all mescal is not tequila. This is because mezcal can be made with any type of agave while tequila must use the blue agave variety. Also, mezcal is known for it’s smokier flavor, because the agave is roasted while tequila is always steamed.

Wahaka Mezcal Joven Espadin, which I picked up for $45 (though it can be had for around $30), is made using traditional means using 100% organic mezcal grown Oaxacao, the center of mezcal production. “Joven Espadin” distinguishes this variety from the other varieties produced by Wahaka. According to a label included with the bottle, after 10 years in the ground the agave is harvested (this batch was harvested in spring 2011), milled using millstone turned by a donkey, cooked and smoked 3-5 days, fermented 12 days, then distilled twice in copper stills.

The resulting spirit has an inviting nose that’s sweet and floral with a hint of smokiness and pine. The taste is clean, with just a bit of sweetness, light smoke, pepper, salt, and butter. The finish is smooth and fleeting.

Despite the harsh reputation of mezcal, Wahaka is a mild spirit that needs a mild or medium-bodied cigar as a pairing. The medium-bodied CAO Concert (pictured), while an excellent cigar, was as full-bodied a cigar as a I would want. A milder cigar like the Oliva Connecticut or a Davidoff Mille series would be an even better pairing.

While Wahaka isn’t as smoky as most mezcal I’ve tried, it makes an excellent introduction to mezcal while being plenty interesting for the more seasoned drinker. If you’re interested in branching out beyond the worm, it’s well worth trying.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

If there’s an award for most unique new cigar from this year’s trade show, I think the runaway winner is Foundry. The one-of-a-kind packaging, inspired by Steampunk style (if you’ve seen League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Wild Wild West—it’s irrelevant that they’re both bad movies—you’ll know the style) with a metal gear around the band, really catches your eye. The cigar itself is just as unique.

Foundry was created by Michael Giannini, the public face of La Gloria Cubana since Ernesto Perez-Carrillo’s departure (and Perez-Carrillo’s former collaborator). While Giannini is tight-lipped about the blend, we know it contains no Dominican, Honduran, or Nicaraguan tobacco. The only component revealed is the wrapper, which is called H-47 Pleno Sol and is grown in Connecticut.

The wrapper is golden brown, but not in the way that most Connecticut shade is. It features plenty of tooth, lots of tiny veins, and just a bit of oily shine. It almost looks as if the wrapper is inside out, with the bottom visible.

The cigar comes in four sizes, all named after Steampunk era icons: Wells (6 x 50, $7.95); Lovelace (6.25 x 54, $8.45); Talbot (5 x 60, $8.95); and Cayley (6.5 x 60 x 56 x 43, $9.45). I smoked four of the Talbot vitola, all of which I received as samples at the 2012 IPCPR Trade Show. It’s a mild cigar with unique flavors. Most notably there is banana bread: yeasty, bready, and slightly sweet. It has a very clean profile that is superbly balanced, very mild, and unlike any cigar I’ve tried before.

Rating such a cigar is difficult. Foundry isn’t trying to be a better version of a cigar already on the market. Instead, it’s trying to be completely different. While it’s not a cigar I’d regularly smoke, I can see myself smoking one every once in a while as a change of pace.

Foundry is not for everyone. It’s different from anything else on the market, which is exactly what Giannini wanted to create. As a cigar that breaks the mold, I really appreciate the unique (there’s a reason I use that word a lot during this review) qualities of the Foundry Talbot, which helps it earn four stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Sometimes you light up a cigar and feel in sync with the blender, as if he knew exactly what you’d enjoy. Aging Room’s releases do that for me. I’ve written before about how much I like the M356.

So I was excited to try the new Quattro, a tightly pressed line with each vitola bearing a musical moniker. It didn’t let me down.

I was struck from the first puff how unlike the M356 it is. There’s more earth, more chocolate, and more coffee than spice. I’ve been smoking the Concerto, something of a Churchill size at 7 inches in length with a 50 ring gauge. There’s no problem maintaining my interest and attention from start to finish. The twists and turns in tastes are terrific.

Construction, burn, and draw have been excellent in all that I’ve smoked, probably a half dozen or so. They run a bit under $8 down here in Florida with no additional cigar tax.

The bold flavors and punch may surprise some smokers who don’t associate tobacco from the Dominican Republic, where the filler was grown, with that kind of power.

The idea behind Aging Room is to produce limited editions of cigars for which there is special tobacco available, but not in the quantity necessary for a regular line. In this case, the wrapper is particularly special. “We got that wrapper from a German manufacturer of machine-made cigars that was having money issues due to the economic situation in Europe. They were looking to liquidate some of their inventory, sent us samples of that Sumatra leaf, and we jumped on it,” company vice president Hank Bischoff wrote me in an email. “It is indeed a genuine Sumatra wrapper, aged since 2003.”

Right now, he said, they have enough for about 400,000 sticks. That could change, Bischoff added, if they’re successful in negotiations to acquire more of the leaf. If so, that would prolong the production run and the Quattro’s shelf life.

I highly recommend the F55 Quattro. It won’t soften rocks, but its charms will certainly soothe the savage pallet. As such, it harmoniously earns five stogies.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here. A list of other five-stogie rated cigars can be found here.]

–George E

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.”

Consistently my favorite La Flor Dominicana blend, the Cameroon Cabinet features a Cameroon wrapper, Dominican binder, and Dominican and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos. This corona (6.5 x 44) is perfectly balanced and medium-bodied with Cameroon sweetness, cocoa cedar, and honey. With an even burn and solid ash it’s a must try.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys