Cigar Review: Rocky Patel Vintage 1992

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.

Kewl

So Missouri Meerschaum is now making churchwarden pipes to coincide with the release of the last Hobbit movie.  They're calling them "Cobbits".

Yes, I ordered one.  Of course I did.

I would have left them there

Some Occu-tards "Occupied" an interstate in Boston.  They had made cement barrels where they could chain themselves together inside the barrel, thus making it harder for the police to move them out of the road.

I would have pushed the barrels to the side of the road, secured them to the barrier there, and then opened the roadway back up.  With the Occu-tards still chained together inside the barrels.

I would have told the Occu-tards that they should probably hang tight to the side of the road to avoid being hit by passing cars.  And then I would have left.  I only would have returned to deal with anyone trying to unchain the barrels from the road barriers.

These Occu-tards were wearing adult diapers, for shit's sake.  They were prepared to be there a long time.  I would have left them there a long, long time, chained to the side of the road, while cars rushed by.

The Diplomacy of Little Children

Apparently, John F'n Kerry took James Taylor with him to France to sing "You've Got A Friend".

No, really.  This is not a joke.  This actually happened.

So we've gone from the Obama administration refusing to attend a march where 40 other heads of state or other international VIPs joined in, to sending a traveling minstrel show in an attempt to appease the world because Obama and his gang of incompetent clowns have managed to piss just about everybody off.

These people could fuck up a wet dream.

And I apologize to minstrels everywhere for using them in the above comparison.

A Cigar Review: Montecristo Media Noche #2

So to make a long story short, last week I got an email from a gentleman from CigarsCity.com, asking if I would do a cigar review for him.

Of course I said yes.  He didn't even mind that this was a mostly political blog.

The gentleman said he would ship the cigars out to me, and they arrived yesterday, nicely bundled up with a humi-pack to make sure they were good and ready once they got here.  There are two different cigars to be sampled, so you can expect another cigar review tomorrow or Saturday.

First up is the Montecristo Media Noche.  The cigar I had was the #2, which is a box-pressed torpedo.  The wrapper is a flawless dark-colored Connecticut Broadleaf that has a sweet kind of tang and rich tobacco aroma to it when you first pull it from the cellophane.  It's the kind of smell that makes your mouth water.  It feels solid in your hand before you light it.

Once I snipped it, I found the draw to be just a tad tight, but still perfectly smokable.  Lighting it up gave me a good tobacco flavor with hints of chocolate and cedar rounding it out and just a hint of spice on the finish.  It put off a good amount of smoke, and I didn't have to re-light it at all throughout the evening.  As I smoked the first inch it developed a sweeter flavor, more chocolate and less cedar.  The ash was a dark-grey and even in color, and held on for an inch and a half before it finally fell off on it's own.

Halfway through the flavors changed just a bit, adding some toast to the chocolate with the cedar notes still holding on.  The cedar and toast notes increase as you finish the cigar, but towards the end the pure tobacco flavor ends up dominating.

The cigar burned evenly all the way down to my fingertips, with no canoeing or hot spots.  It's a well constructed cigar, which is to be expected from Montecristo.

All in all it was a great medium-bodied smoke.  The flavors were rich but not overbearing, and the sweetness of the Broadleaf wrapper paired well with the cedar and spice from the filler.  All the flavors were very well balanced.

OK, so that's the more technical review.  My less technical review is this:  It's a great cigar, not too strong, goes well with scotch or wine, won't beat up your palate, and smokes better than about 90% of the sticks out there.  Would I grab it if I saw it in my cigar shop's humidor?  Yes.  Would someone who prefers a more mild smoke still enjoy it?  Yes.

Also, if you look in the "Be A Man" block of the sidebar, you'll see CigarsCity.com has been added.  They've got a good selection, good prices, and free shipping for orders of $50 or more.  Plus, if the box I got was any indication (and I think it is) they make sure your cigars get to you in great shape.

So thank you to Anthony from CigarsCity.com for the chance to do this!  I'll be posting my review of the other cigar later.

Next up: Bishops losing their diocese.

Bishops from Venezuela are letting Pope Francis know that he's all wet when he goes around denouncing capitalism.  I think Cardinal Burke can tell you that going up against this particular pope doesn't do you many favors when it comes to your career track.  But here's hoping that some Bishops from South American can beat some sense into Frank's head.

Dear Hyundai

Build this.  Give it a diesel engine and towing capability. I will buy it.

Both Hyundai and Kia make small, flatbed pickup trucks in Korea that I drove when I was stationed there.  Great little trucks.  Diesel engines, good gas mileage, could haul anything that would fit in the bed.  I wanted one of those when I came back, but they weren't selling them here in the US.

This would fill a niche right nicely.

The World wanted Obama

So when Obama sends a gigantic middle finger to the world, when Obama abdicates his position as leader of the free world, just keep in mind that Obama is the American President that these people wanted.

They hated that cowboy Bush.  They couldn't stand anyone that highlighted their weakness, their failures, their lack of spine.

They cheered for Obama.  They rallied to Obama's speeches.  They celebrated his election.  Twice.  And so when that narcissistic buffoon basically tells them all to go fuck off, what can they do?

Obama is their guy.  He's their anti-Bush.  They gave that incompetent fucking moron the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for pete's sake, just for being Not-Bush, and he's rewarded them with a Middle East on fire, Russia invading Ukraine, Islamic Terrorism resurgent.

And on top of all of that, he can't even be bothered to send anyone of importance to the biggest rally in France since World War II.  The leaders of Germany, the UK, Israel and thirty-seven other countries were there.  Could he even send that moron John F'n Kerry?  Y'know, the guy who speaks FRENCH?  The guy who's such a failure that he makes Hillary Clinton look half-way competent?  Nope, can't do that!  Maybe Kerry had some important botox injections he didn't want to miss, who knows?

The fact that Obama snubbed France this way is unacceptable.  But the fact that it happened to his supporters (except for Bibi, who knows just what kind of gutless, sniveling shitweasel Obama is) is a little bit of delicious irony.  They wanted Obama.  And they got him, good and hard.

Colts beat Broncos

Whoa...  that just overturned the narrative's applecart, didn't it?  Andrew Luck is scary good!