I enjoy smoking a good cigar.
This past year I’ve started to pay more attention to the types, variety and flavors of cigars.
Last week on New Year’s Eve I smoked a Macanudo for the first time in quite a while and was surprised by how my pallet had changed from when I first started smoking cigars. I told my friend whom I was hanging out with that I would try and educate him a bit about cigars, since he is always schooling me on bourbons.
We agreed that I would bring him one to two Cigars a month to try and I decided that I would review the cigars first.
Tonight I smoked my first cigar on this new quest and I didn’t start small.
Cigar Aficionado recently ranked their top Cigars for 2011 and the number 1 ranking went to Alec Bradley for the Prensado cigar. The Prensado is a beautiful cigar that is “Box Pressed” which means it is tight and some what squared.
The Prensado comes in a variety of sizes but I ended up smoking a Churchill which is a large Cigar that is 7 inches in length and is a 48 Ring size. The ring size or ring gauge means that the cigar is 48/64ths of an inch in diameter. This is a pretty big cigar and generally I like to smoke a Robusto which the Prensado comes in and is a 5 inch cigar.
The Prensado is made in Honduras and has a blend of Honduran and Nicaraguan filler in a Nicaraguan Jalapa binder and wrapped with a beautiful Honduran Trojes Corojo 2006 wrapper.
I enjoyed my cigar this evening while sitting in the driveway and looking up at the stars. Here are the notes I took on the smoke:
This is a really nice cigar. It’s packed really well and grew about a 3 inch ash before falling off. The flavor started off with a bit of spice on the tong but quickly mellowed. The smoke is a bit heavy but also has a pleasant oaky aroma. Interestingly there is a chocolate flavor on the back of the tong. One slight disappointment was that when the original ash fell off about 1/3 of the way through I had to turn the cigar to keep it lit correctly.
I enjoyed a glass of iced Gentleman Jack with this cigar and it was a lovely accompaniment. Often by the time I finish a cigar even a good one it’s falling apart b/c I like to chew on the end a bit. This cigar kept its form right to the finish. The spice picks back up in the finish but doesn’t stay with you too long. The cigar did finish with a 2in ash.
I was very happy with this cigar and gave it a 97 rating on my scale but I’m new to this ranking thing so I went and checked out Cigar Aficionado had to say. They gave the cigar a 96 and identified spice, chocolate. They also mentioned a leather taste which I think I got as well but couldn’t exactly identify while smoking.
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