Rocky Patel loves his aged tobacco, that's for sure. He has several blends out that are ten, fifteen, twenty years old, and the trend will probably continue. I've had a couple different Patel cigars in the past - a couple of his Edge varieties, Freedom (which I highly recommend), Vintage 1999 Connecticut, and a few other more boutique blends. This particular cigar I had not tried before.
The cigar I tried was a box-pressed torpedo. It has a ten-year old Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, and it adds a nice sweetness to the cigar when you pull it from the plastic. The tobacco smell is distinct, but light. After cutting the tip, the draw was good - not too tight, not too loose. Upon initial flavor upon lighting it was sweet tobacco with toast and hints of spice. The initial impression is a medium-to-full flavor, more medium than full. After about the first inch, you start getting a pepper note creeping in along with the spice, building very gradually.
Right about halfway through the cigar the pepper is fully pronounced, giving you a pepper and tobacco flavor. This is also the time when the flavor begins to build up from medium more to full. The ash on this cigar will hold for about an inch before falling off.
At about the last third of the cigar it's moved into a full-flavor profile, with tobacco, pepper and hints of toast. It eventually died out about an inch and a half from the nub of the cigar, but maintained good flavor all the way to the finish.
So, there's my technical review. Here's my non-technical review:
This is a good Medium-Full cigar. I would hold it's own against scotch or a hoppy IPA. I think the crisp notes of the IPA would go well with the spice and pepper of the cigar. It's not my favorite Rocky Patel cigar, but when you've got 52 different cigars that leaves a wide range of good smokes, and not all of them can be my favorite. Since the cigar ends up full flavored, I wouldn't advise it for anyone who doesn't like a bold cigar. It starts out sweet, ends up spicy, and has enough of a kick at the end to keep me happy. My only real complaint is that it died out before I was ready to stub it out; that could be from a number of different factors so I'm not blaming that on the cigar just yet.
Would I buy it if my local cigar shop had it? Maybe. That would depend on what other Patel blends were available. Would someone who enjoys a mild cigar enjoy this? Only the first half - the latter half would be too strong for them.
Once again, I'd like to thank Anthony from CigarsCity.com for giving me the opportunity to do this. Their link is up on the sidebar in the "Be A Man" block.
Very nice Cigar
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