Brand evangelist, digital marketer, cigar and spirits expert specializing in consumer tasting and educational events. Matthias made the long trek from his hometown of Portland, Oregon to New York City in 2007, and in nine years has hosted more than 120 events and helped promote and launch dozens of cigar and whiskey brands in the U.S. In 2016, he joined the Cigar Journal Tasting Panel, blind-reviewing pre and new release cigars.
For all of you avid whiskey drinkers out there, here’s a new website to bo0kmark: whiskey-distillery.net. The website is essentially a library of thousands of photos of the most famous distilleries in the world. Not only that, each distillery profile includes an extensive history of each distillery, their whiskeys, and ownership. As an example, take a look at this page highlighting the Kilbeggan distillery (one among hundreds of distilleries on the site). The page features hundreds of high quality photos, like this gem.
Tonight is a very special night, but not because I’m reviewing a cigar from Ventura Cigar (sorry Ventura). FineTobaccoNYC Contributing Writer and Event Coordinator Kelvin Batista is with me in my backyard enjoying the beautiful summer night. He’s reviewing the Fogo (about a 6″ perfecto, I’ll let him explain). Paired with this Estilo Cubano I have a glass of red wine.
Dual review!
Blend Specifics
Wrapper: Viso Habano Maduro
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Seco Habano and Ligero Habano
Size: Robusto
Appearance & Construction
The Estilo Cubano has a beautiful dark brown Habano wrapper. Scents off of the foot of the cigar include hay, woodland berries, and granola. Also some coffee bean. There’s also a faint spice that tickles my nose hairs. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the band on this cigar. Luckily, cigars are similar to books in this respect: you don’t judge a cigar by its band.
Flavor & Smoke Characteristics
Lighting up this cigar, I’m most taken aback by the flavor that I don’t sense. It takes a couple of minutes for the cigar to really open up, and when it does, the most prominent flavor is a sort of rich, dark chocolate. Much less prominent though than other cigars with a similar profile (hint: Emilio AF1). If the AF1 and Estilo Cubano were bars of chocolate, the Estilo Cubano would be much higher on the cocoa content. Yet, like any good bar of dark chocolate, it retains an excellent smoothness in the smoke. And thta’s just the first third.
In the second third, the distinctive change is the woodiness that becomes prominent. The construction throughout the smoke has remained flawless. From what I can tell, not much changes in the final third.
The burn
Conclusion
Depending on the flavor profile you prefer, this could be the cigar for you. For me, it strikes a nice chord, but for the flavor profile, I’m more likely to go with something like the Emilio AF1, which has the same silky smooth texture, but with much more emphasis on the dark chocolate.
According to a post by Whiskey Intelligence, the Dalmore is now the world’s most rapidly-growing single malt. From the press release,
The data reveals that the Dalmore is currently the fasting growing malt year on year with value growth of 69 per cent, taking over from Whyte & Mackay’s other single malt brand Jura which is now the second fastest growing malt in the world with value growth of 56 per cent. The phenomenal performance of the two brands compares with average growth of only 12 per cent across the top 25 malt brands globally.
Since 1839, The Dalmore distillery has been producing luxury brand scotch. To read a great review of a series of Dalmore scotch’s, head over to this page on livefireonline.com for good descriptions and photos as well.
With such tremendous growth, this just might be the next scotch for you to try. They also have a line created specifically to pair with cigars – might be another product to look for. You can find out more about the Dalmoreon their website.
Heads up New York cigar smokers: the Cigar Inn just released an announcement of an upcoming dinner event featuring the newest cigar from Montecristo: the Connoisseur Edition No. 2. According to the announcement this cigar is the follow up to the popular Montecristo New York Connoisseur Edition (No. 1), which featured and Ecuadorian Habano wrapper and a box pressed design. I’ve smoked that cigar many times, and it is a really fantastic cigar, so I can’t wait to see what Montecristo has planned for the #2.
The dinner will be held at the Cigar Inn (2nd Ave location) on July 17th at 7:00pm. There is no ticket information or price information – so not really sure what is up with that or if they even want people to show up – but it’s worth looking in to.
Cigar Aficionado reports that the Casa Magna Colorado, which we published a review of today, is due for re-release in box-press form. For those of you who haven’t smoked the Casa Magna Colorado, do yourself a favor and try it. You can read about the flavor profile here on our review, as well as see photos of the stick.
The original Casa Magna Colorado was rated the #1 cigar in 2008 in Cigar Aficionado Magazine, and you can find it at the Cigar Inn for ~$8 – a steal. Now I just have to hope that the guys at Cigar Inn pick up a few boxes of these new sticks for me to try!
Here’s a little bit about the cigar from the CA website:
“Packaged in boxes of 20, the thick, squared-off smokes are the Gordo Real, which measures 6 1/4 inches by 60 ring gauge; the Toro, 6 by 50; and the Short Robusto at 4 1/4 by 54. Retail prices should fall in the $6.95 to $8.95 range.”
