Ramón Allones Gigantes

Posted on June 17, 2013 by atgroom under Current Production, Ramón Allones

Paris. City of lights. City of love. City of an all pervasive and indefinable stink.

I’ve just had a big meal in a small café. A few glasses of wine. An apéritif. A digestif. A cigar feels about right. I have with me a Ramón Allones Gigantes with some age on it. Eight years, maybe ten? I wouldn’t think more than that, it burns too black. It has the old band at any rate, so at least five.

Don’t expect a lot of tasting notes on this one, readers, as honestly, I’m well in the bag already. I can tell from the first puff though that this is bueno tobaco. Very smooth, with a hint of spice. Who are we kidding, cigars taste like tobacco, and so does this one. Beautiful, rich, smooth Cuban leaf.

The sun goes down as I survey the square, puffing occasionally as the French go about their business. In the window of the café an old French woman smiles at me. “Habana?” the waiter asks. “Oui. Si bon.” I order une café. Espresso.

The coffee is a good compliment. Strong notes of it is what I’m getting. It’s hard to say if it’s coming from the cigar or not. Certainly tastes like it. I’m also enjoying the wine, a cheap Bordeaux. I’ve never been a huge fan of red wine with cigars, but on a balmy summer night in Paris what else would one have?

I set off for a walk, down who knows what Parisian boulevard. I’m headed for the river. A black man accosts me. Afro-French? What’s the politically correct term? I’m sure the French would say negro. Emphasis on the neg. He says a lot of words to me in French, but the only two I understand are “cigar” and “hashish.” I assume he either wants one or is trying to sell me the other. I wave him away. I used to have a friend once, years ago, in China, who would occasionally ask me for a cigar so that he could pack it with alternating layers of cocaine and hashish. It was quite a party.

I find myself outside a church I recognise. It’s not a famous one, and not much by Parisian standards, but something in its familiar silhouette cuts through the fog of wine and tobacco and good times, and takes me back, back five years, back to the last time I was in Paris, and back to Audrey.

Audrey was an underwear model and perfect in every way. I had dated her for a year or so two years prior, but ultimately we’d grown apart, our relationship devolving into a continuous, passive aggressive argument. They say that for every impossibly beautiful woman there’s a man who’s sick of putting up with her shit, and for Audrey, I was that man. Or perhaps it was her who was sick of putting up with my shit, I don’t recall. Probably a bit of both. By the time world turned and took me to Paris we’d been broken up long enough that we’d forgotten about the arguments, but not long enough that we’d forgotten about each other. I knew that she was in London – once upon a time we’d planned to take that trip together – and so when I got to Paris I sent her an email. “Meet me under the Arc de Triomphe at noon” I wrote “or, if you don’t want to see me, steer clear, because that’s where I’ll be.” I picked the Arc because it was the only French landmark I knew with an eternal flame. I thought it could be symbolic.

She didn’t steer clear.

I got there fifteen minutes early, and she was there before that, sitting on the grave of the Unknown Soldier in a short red coat. It was cold, just before Christmas, and she had a flush in her cheek and that same old sparkle in her eye. I had a small heart attack when I saw her, and as I touched her shoulder and she turned to me I think she might have had one too, but once my arm slid around her familiar waist, once I’d kissed her velvet cheeks (both of them: we were in Europe), I knew that we were back, back to the best of our relationship. We were back in love.

We held hands, and ran up the stairs of the Eiffel tower. We made love for the first time in her shithole hotel room, just as the sun went down over the Parisian rooftops. She was looking out the window at the sunset and I stood very close behind her, just barely touching her, just barely smelling her hair. Without speaking she walked away from the window, lay down on the bed and looked at me, so I went over and undressed her. I remember she wore matching underwear, sort of a mottled green pattern. She’d planned this. As we reached the sweat drenched climax of our passion the phone starting ringing, the front desk trying to tell us that we’d have to pay an extra 15 euro to have two people in the room.

She was perfect and Paris was perfect. Three days we spent together, walking around, young and in love. This cigar is good, but that was better. She had a mole underneath her right breast. A small waist, and hips that were cantered slightly to one side, but you only noticed from behind.

We didn’t want to go back to the hotel and face another round of angry ringing, so instead we walked the streets at night, finding dark little boltholes in which to devour one another, the thrill of icy fingers sliding beneath warm garments, probing, seeking ever warmer, deeper crevasses in the flesh, giggling and gasping with the chill and excitement; carnal pleasures in alleyways and parks, deserted stairways and banks of the canals.

I find myself at Notre Dame. Where else would I end up? There’s a star on the courtyard here that indicates the starting point of all distances in France or something like that. The cigar is getting bitter now. Tar and nicotine. The best part. It has been burning unevenly for two inches now, but as I sit and contemplate the old cathedral it evens itself up. A good Havana. Castro would be proud. Off to one side some girls are drinking wine, swigging from the bottle. Outside a church in the middle of the night. The most famous church in the world. Paris.

On our last night together she blew me in an elevator. It was three in the morning and we’d been spooked out of half a dozen other places by security guards and midnight ramblers, when we came upon some apartment building with a door that was slightly ajar. We took the elevator up to the sixth floor, but didn’t disembark. I remember the head of my penis was very red and the eyes that looked up at me were very blue. We weren’t quite finished when the elevator began to move. I pressed every button while she did up my fly. We got out on three and walked the rest of the way down, arm in arm and laughing. We passed the middle aged man who had pressed the button in the lobby. He didn’t look impressed. Paris: the city of lights, but the streets are dim in the night-time.

And that was that. I walked her back to her hotel, kissed her goodnight, and a scant few hours later was on the TGV to Zurich, she on the Eurostar back to London. I saw her again a few times over the years, in London once, and Tokyo, but it was never the same as Paris and after a while she emailed to say she’d decided not to see me anymore.

I head back to my hotel. The ash is jet black. This is not an aged cigar at all. Tar and nicotine.

The nub of the cigar finds its final resting place in an anonymous trash-bag on the Boulevard de Strasbourg. Maybe Rue, I can’t remember. You should always nub a cigar, people. You hear cigar aficionados say all the time that they tossed a cigar after two puffs because it wasn’t up to their exacting standards; “life’s too short for bad cigars,” they say. They’re wrong. It’s disrespectful to the farmers. Think of Alejandro Robaina, that one hundred year old sea turtle. It’s the oil from his palms that give cigars their sheen. How could you throw that away?

Ramón Allones Gigantes. A great cigar. Tastes like tobacco.

Audrey, I miss you. My Paris will always stink of you.

Ramón Allones Gigantes on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo Roundup

Posted on June 14, 2013 by atgroom under Montecristo, Roundup

Presented below is a list with which I attempt to place every Montecristo cigar reviewed in this column into an extremely subjective ranked order, from best to worst.

Should another Montecristo cigar ever appear in these pages, I will update this list to include it.

It’s worth noting, I suppose, that while you should certainly take this list as absolute gospel (and conduct no purchase without first referring to it), the greater pleasure in cigar smoking is to be found in good company, in warm afternoons outdoors, and in the bottom of quality glassware (not to mention in the composing of self-indulgent prose). Your experience may vary is what I’m getting at. I’ll endeavour to revisit a few of these from time to time and report back if mine does.

Montecristo 520 Edición Limitada 2012

Posted on June 12, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

The Montecristo 520, Edición Limitada 2012: at the time of writing this is the most recently released special edition Montecristo; at the time of writing this is the last remaining true special edition Montecristo that this column has not reviewed. I’ve saved it till last for a reason: I’m preparing a ranking, a definitive ordered list of all the Montecristo cigars, and I wanted to save something till the end that might just cause a last minute upset. This cigar has a lot of competition to stare down: Edición Limitadas with a decade more age on them, the rarest of super exotics, and cigars made without compromise for just this kind of competition, and yet, if anything can upset the field I think it might just be the 520. Not many cigars have had the kind of rave reviews that the 520 has had.

It’s a sunny winter’s afternoon, 13 degrees in the shade, and I’m out in my backyard. I’m joined via satellite by an old smoking buddy, one of my first journeyman companions in the world of Cuban cigars. He has washed up as a clerk in a cigar store in Canada, and today he will be smoking a Montecristo 520 alongside mine; a herf just like old times, despite one third of the earth’s circumference being between us.

I light the 520 with a match (I ran out of liquid butane about three months ago, and have gradually exhausted the chambers of all the jet lighters that are scattered about my house. It really is getting to crisis point), fairly unevenly. The early notes have a strong oak flavour, with a little dry spice.

Construction is adequate, if a little on the loose side; the burn evens up nicely after my very irregular light. It does, however, suffer from the 55 ring gauge mouth feel. Aficionados object to the rise of the 55 ring gauge for a lot of reasons: the fatter cigars deliver a much bigger punch, fuller flavoured with more nicotine, which means they trend less elegant, less delicately flavourful; the fat boys are also a break from the ancient traditions that make up the mystique of Cuban cigars; and their rise has been indomitable, with many new fat cigars released at the cost of many thin ones discontinued. It also seems like with fat cigars Cuba is chasing the one market in the world that doesn’t sell their product: the USA. For me though, the main objection I have to the 55 is the mouth feel. I don’t know what it is, the difference between a 55 and a 52 is so small that I can’t see why I’d notice it, and yet I do. Those three extra sixty-fourths of an inch are a bridge too far. They make my jaw ache.

The old Mercedes 600 Grossers in the ‘60s had a three pronged star hood ornament that was twenty per cent larger than the one on the standard car, for no reason other than that the fastidious German engineers felt that the smaller size looked out of proportion atop that gargantuan grill. Typically a fat Cuban cigar will wear the same band as its more svelte brethren – it might be longer to accommodate the gauge, but the detail will be the same size. On this particular Montecristo cigar though, the crest itself is huge – I’d say about twenty per cent bigger. Perhaps they felt it was out of proportion atop this gargantuan ring gauge. It’s funny, because Cuban engineers are usually anything but fastidious.

Memories linked to smell and taste are the most powerful, and when a tang forms in the cigar one hits me like a truck. I was about eight years old, traveling with my parents. We had spent a few days staying with some friends in Singapore, and they’d given us a gift of a bag of lollies, presumably to keep my sister and I quiet on the flight. They were lemon sugar drop things, but coated in a white powder that gave the lolly an intensely sour taste for a few moments, before the sweet of the sugar relieved it. The powder was dusted on the sweets, and so a good deal of it collected in the bottom of the bag, such that when my father opened it, particles of the powder would become airborne, giving off a distinct, chemical lemon tang. That is the flavour I taste now in the Montecristo 520.

On the other side of the world my colleague tastes chocolate. I am all around it, but not there. There is cocoa, sure, and coffee, and some other beans, but it lacks the sweetness needed for me to call this chocolate. There is a bitterness one might confuse for a very pure chocolate, but to me it’s coffee, the bitter end of a Turkish cup.

As I burn into the final third the flavour of cream is present. The cigar is so mellow that I can barely taste the tobacco. Tar pokes through from time to time for the penultimate inch (quite reasonable for the business end of a large cigar like this), but as the coal crosses into the final one the tar dissipates entirely. It is simply sweet and creamy, with a hint of spice.

The final notes are of a well-used leather wallet. I smoke it all the way to the end. People sometimes ask me what the secret is to smoking a cigar all the way. “How do you not burn your fingers?” they say. “You don’t” I tell them. “The secret is not to care.”

So here’s the straight dope: the Montecristo 520 is a great cigar. You can still buy boxes if you’re prepared to look around for ten minutes, and you definitely should.

I can say with every confidence that in 2013, with less than a year of age on it, this cigar is better than the 2000 Robusto EL with thirteen. It’s also better also than the C, the D, the 2006 Robusto, and even the 2001 Double Corona and the 2008 Sublimes (although, interestingly, of these the Sublimes comes the closest).

There is, however, one Montecristo EL that the 520 is not better than: it’s immediate predecessor, the 2010 Grand Edmundo.

Why, I wonder, in 2013 are the three most recent Montecristo Edición Limitadas the three best Montecristo Edición Limitadas? Have the older ones peaked, and are on their way out? Do ELs not age well? My major complaint about all the old ELs was of an overriding bitterness, which is not usually a symptom of a cigar that is past its prime (usually quite the opposite in fact). Perhaps it’s just that the new ELs have been made to peak as they’re sold, and will fall off dreadfully in the near future.

Or perhaps those Cuban tobacco engineers have become a little fastidious in the last few years. Perhaps their hard work has paid off, and the cigars are simply reflecting that. Perhaps the Montecristo 520 is progress.

Montecristo 520 Edición Limitada 2012 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo No. 2 510 Aniversario Humidor

Posted on June 5, 2013 by atgroom under Commemorative Release, Montecristo

The 510 Aniversario Humidor commemorates the 510^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus bringing tobacco back to the old world. I’m not sure why it was released in 2003, as Cuba seems to date this event pretty soundly at 1492 (the holy grail of exotic Habanos is the 1492 Humidor – more on that later). Perhaps it was an afterthought.

The 510 examples of this nice wooden humidor contain 100 cigars a piece, 20 each from five brands: Cohiba Espléndidos, Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No.1s, Royals de Partagás, Romeo y Julieta Hermosos No.3 and Montecristo No. 2s, one of which will burn this afternoon. Of the five, three were existing sizes and two were unique to the humidor (the Partagás and the Romeo y Julieta). Trivia fact: in some of the humidors they messed up the bands, swapping the Partagás and the Romeo bands. There was an apology letter.

Another trivia fact: there appears to be a typo on the band, which reads “De la llegada del Habano al viejo munddo”, the mistake being the double D in mundo. My Spanish isn’t the best (in fact, it’s the worst), and there’s every chance that munddo is an entirely distinct and valid word to the mundo I’m familiar with (it means ‘world,’ as in ‘El Rey Del Mundo’, ‘The King of the World’). Google Translate agrees with me though, and the fact that on the outside of the humidor proper it’s spelt with a single D is probably a point in my favour. I’ve tried looking for a clean scan of the band to see if it’s a common problem, but the only good image I can come up with is from my own encyclopaedia.

The cigar is constructed perfectly, nice wrapper, nice draw, although once alight does not begin especially well. Throughout the first inch a bitter sulphur flavour dominates the pallet, although the aftertaste is nice, a creamy mid-tobacco.

I have four or five go-to cocktails that I can shake up with a few moment’s notice, and of these the most complex is the Blood and Sand; equal parts cherry brandy, sweet vermouth, scotch whisky and fresh orange juice, the tarter the better. I had one of these last night, which unfortunately killed the last of my whisky without slaking my taste for it, so I’ve shaken it again this afternoon except with dark rum substituting the scotch. It’s not bad, although I like the scotch version better. I tend to use the best scotch I can find in this cocktail (which is to say I tend to shake it from someone else’s cocktail cabinet); a good peaty scotch, Laphroaig, Lagavulin et al, adds a delicious smoky aftertaste to the sour cherry mess that is the main flavour.

I’m not sure if it’s just a factor of my changing tastes and ever increasing operating budget, but it seems to me that there’s been a rebirth of the bitter, complex cocktail in the last few years (I think it started with that Old Fashioned craze a few years back, itself started by fans of Mad Men wanting to look cool). When I were a lad cocktail bars were a lot fewer and father between than they are now, and upon entering one you would typically be presented with a book containing twenty or so different options, from which you would select a gooey mess of chocolate and cream called a “Toblerone” or something like that.

There was a girl I used to see around this time who had a taste for such concoctions, and our standard Saturday was to find a dimly lit lair where we could order expensive drinks and make out. I would generally order beer, or sometimes whisky (you must remember that this story takes place in an era before Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and cocktails were still widely seen as ‘for girls’), but on one occasion we entered a particularly dark basement bar called Bambu, where the waiter wasn’t satisfied with that. “C’mon” he exhorted, “Have a cocktail. I’ll make you anything you want – doesn’t have to be on the menu. What do you like?” “Well,” I said “can you make me a cocktail that’s tasty but still manly?” He said he knew just the thing, and returned with something that I think he called a Bollo. He described it as containing four Italian liqueurs, and presented me with a balloon filled almost to the brim with a pitch black liquid, a few pieces of orange rind barely visible somewhere in the depths. It emitted a heavy, bittersweet, musky complexity. It was wonderful. The first real cocktail I’d ever had.

Bambu fast became our regular haunt (it didn’t hurt that they had a curtained off section that was the most private make out space in any bar in the city), and each time he would produce the same drink, more or less unbidden, until six months later I returned and my bartender was gone. I asked his successor for a “Bollo, I think it has four Italian liqueurs” but he didn’t know what I was talking about. I then asked for something “tasty but manly” and got some sour lemon thing in a Hurricane glass that was neither.

I’m sorry to say it, but throughout this whole exercise this Monte 2 never really came alive. It was a decent enough cigar, don’t get me wrong, but not particularly complex and always very rough around the edges. If I had to reach for tasting notes I’d say there was a little coffee in the middle, and the bitterness of cocoa, although none of the sweet it needs to make chocolate. All things considered it is a Monte 2; no better or worse than a good quality standard production (and considerably worse than the standard production Monte 2 I previously enjoyed alongside the Gran Reserva). It’s better than a Monte 4 only because it is longer and a cooler shape.

That said, you’re not buying the 510 Humidor because it’s the cheapest way you can think of to get some Monte 2s. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from these last six months, it’s that the further a cigar deviates from regular production, the more effort the Cubans put into it. Pure speculation, but I’d guess that the Romeo and the Partagás are the picks of this litter. And let’s face it, this more so than almost anything else is a collector’s piece: these bad boys are not for smoking.

Montecristo No. 2 510 Aniversario Humidor on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo No. 2 Gran Reserva Cosecha 2005

Posted on May 29, 2013 by atgroom under Gran Reserva, Montecristo

The theory behind the Grand Reserve series goes that once in a great while (a great while being every two years) an especially good tobacco harvest might produce a small amount of absolutely peerless leaf, leaf that will be aged for as long as it takes to perfect it and then rolled by the highest ranking torcedoras into cigars that are the best of the best; into cigars that are absolutely without compromise. The theory behind the Grand Reserve series goes that Habanos can charge six or seven times as much for them as they do their single banded analogues.

The cigar I consider today, the Montecristo No. 2 Gran Reserva Cosecha 2005, is the second release in the Gran Reserva series, following 2009’s Cohiba Siglo VI. The third instalment has been announced, but at time of writing has yet to surface: the Partagás Lusitania. Of the three the only one I really understand is the Lusitania. If you’re going to roll the best of the best for a given brand, it should be that brand’s flagship, which for Partagás is the Lusi. The Sig VI makes some sense for Cohiba, I suppose – while my Cohiba flag carrier will always be the Lanceros (or maybe the Espléndidos at a stretch), I understand that it might be the Siglo VI as far as Habanos SA is concerned. Montecristo is a hard brand to pick a flagship for; you’ve got the A, which is their most expensive and impressive cigar, but is too big for even aficionados to smoke with much pleasure; you’ve got the Especiales No. 1, which is a beautiful, elegant thing, but I don’t think sells very well; then the Edmundo, but that only came out about five years ago… what else, the No. 1?

At any rate, it’s not the No.2.

Perhaps they have no choice what Gran Reserva they roll? Perhaps the blenders say “no, no, this peerless tobacco is only suitable for Montecristo No. 2s.” I hope so. I hope in a few years they say “no, no, this peerless tobacco is only suitable for a Fonseca Cosacos.”

I’m joined this evening by my colleague T. Rex, and have issued him with a cigar to smoke alongside my Gran Reserva: a Montecristo No. 2, box code DEB OCT06. 2006 was the first year of Habanos’ new ageing policies – all leaf is aged for at least one year before rolling (certain varieties are aged for two and three years, but let’s not complicate things) – so a box date of October 2006, therefore, means that most of this tobacco comes from the 2005 harvest – cosecha 2005, if you will. The point is that these cigars are the same cigar, made of the same tobacco, aged for the same period of time (albeit one aged in a warehouse pre-rolling and one aged in a box after it). If any test can reveal whether or not the Gran Reserva is worth the premium, this is it.

And, to its credit, the Gran Reserva opens wonderfully, with notes of cream, and very, very smooth tobacco. We’re smoking outside, but the evening is perfectly still: both cigars lit effortlessly: we used separate matches, but could easily have shared one, as neither of us burnt more than a third of the wood.

We’re drinking a Grosset Pinot Noir 2002, which T. Rex informs me is a Very Good Wine. I’m not much of a wine aficionado, but judging this purely by the look of the label I’d put it in the $10 – 15 range. T. Rex takes a sip and grimaces, saying that it needs to breathe. He’s right: the opening nose is vinegar mixed with high fruit compost.

An inch or so in we swap cigars for a few puffs, and, my main observation being that the regulation Monte 2 has a much tighter draw, I suggest to Tybalt that he take a few hairs’ breadth from the pyramid tip to open it up a bit. Flavour wise, the cigars are honestly on par; if anything the regular 2 is the more flavourful, if heavier on the tobacco. T. Rex describes it as “more sulphurous,” but I’m loath to pin such a loaded adjective on it as it really is an excellent cigar. Cedar predominates both, with a splash of cream and mild kidney bean.

We swap war stories for a while, and then, washing down a hearty guffaw with a drizzle of pinot down the back of my throat, I have what alcoholics refer to as a “moment of clarity.” I am struck by the notion that everything really is excellent. The wine has opened like a lily to the light, a delicate, pungent fruit bowl that pays good compliment to the smooth, refined tobacco of the Gran Reserva. It’s sweet; earth, leather, coffee… the whole bag.

I spend a long moment absorbed in my screen writing this bullshit, and when I come to T. Rex suggests that I try both cigars again. I try the regulation 2 first, and am amazed at how good it is; a smooth, perfect 2. Next I try the Gran Reserva, and am shocked: it’s very good, but of the two, it is by far the rougher. I hem and haw a moment… this is the Gran Reserva, the hot tip to top the leaderboard of Montecristo cigars that I’ll publish in a few weeks… how can I admit that a humble standard issue No. 2 is its better? As soon as I stammeringly articulate the thought T. Rex‘s smirk betrays him: he has switched the bands on me. It’s a good test, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is more to the Grand Reserva than the psychological bump from the fancy band, but it will sow a seed of doubt in me the rest of the evening, especially once we get down to the business end and the bands come off… am I smoking the cigar I think I’m smoking?

In the last few centimetres the regular No. 2 shows a quite a bit of tar, then the Reserva shows some, and then the tar dissipates from both. Neither cigar has required a relight or touch up, and they both get smoked till we burn our fingers.

The main problem with the Gran Reserva was the Monte 2 I put it up against. I don’t know what happened here – maybe 2005 really was a great year for Montecristo No. 2 tobacco – because this one was one of the very best I’ve ever encountered. The Reserva was better, don’t get me wrong, and if what you want is an absolutely flawless Montecristo No. 2 every time, then the Grand Reserva version is exactly what you should buy. If you were to shop around though, if you were to buy well reviewed box codes, and stock up during the good seasons… well, there are some flawless regular Monte 2s out there that don’t have the Reserva band, and there’s a lot of room for trial and error in that price margin. Also, when all is said and done, this is just a perfect Monte 2. If you have a little coin to drop and are looking for something that’s better than an average Monte 2, why not try a Cohiba?

All that said, I really don’t want to disparage the Monte 2 Gran Reserva at all; it is a flawless cigar that delivers everything that can be delivered within the scope of its responsibilities. It’s not the best cigar in the Montecristo line-up, but it’s in the top few, and it’s a lot better than a Monte 4.

Montecristo No. 2 Gran Reserva Cosecha 2005 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Edmundo Dantes Conde 54 Edición Regional Mexico 2011

Posted on May 23, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Regional, Edmundo Dantes

For the first release in Mexico’s regional program they created a truly interesting cigar in the Edmundo Dantes el Conde 109. It was from a new brand, Edmundo Dantes, a sort of faux-Montecristo created for the occasion, and had all the trimmings of that in its unique packaging; it was also a beautiful size, a 109, an old classic size from the distant past that is no longer present in any current production, recent examples existing only in the most exclusive of special production humidors (it has since appeared in a few other regional editions, but Mexico got it first). Based on this alone the collector’s market would have sold out as much as they could produce, but on top of everything it was also a great smoke.

So what of the sequel? How do you follow up a classic like the el Conde 109? Perhaps with something bold, like a Montecristo Culebras? Perhaps reach into the archive and bring back the Montecristo No. 7, something like that? No. For the second release in their regional program they chose to do another cigar from Edmundo Dantes, this time the Conde 54, a 54 x 164mm Sublime, a size that was invented in 2004 to fulfil what demand I can’t say, an by 2011 had already appeared in five regional editions and two limiteds.

For reasons I’m not totally clear on, I’ve decided on this pleasant morning to hang up the hammock, and to subject myself to the unique set of physics problems one encounters when trying to balance a small fire, a full cocktail and a laptop (not to mention my ungainly frame) in a sack hanging between two trees. Access to additional rum and ginger beer are also important considerations: they’re on the ground next to me, at a height where reaching for them will take me right to the edge of my centre of gravity.

The cigar takes a while to light (I can’t keep everything steady enough), but once it’s going it begins very well, light tobacco over a gentle, herbal spice and alfalfa sprouts. Draw is a little modern (read loose) for my taste, but perfectly workable.

I used to associate at one point with a man named Job, a nine fingered deviant of the highest order, who would occasionally travel to Mexico on business. He told me that before each trip he would pack a large cleaver in the outer pocket of his checked baggage, withdrawing it immediately upon picking up his bag from the carousel. This, he said, was an important security measure that would give him enough of a weapon to get through the arrivals hall to meet his driver, who would offer him a gun before a handshake.

Job was in liquor, and perhaps the tequila factory towns that he frequented were more dangerous Mexico City, where I spent the entirety of my two visits to that country. I never felt in danger, staggering through the dimly lit streets, drunk as much on altitude as the 1L bottles of Corona I bought for less than a dollar at every 7-11. It’s definitely a dangerous city: cops carry automatic shotguns and wear bandoliers, whether they be on beat patrol or horseback riding lawmen in elaborate sombreros… but day to day? Violence on the streets? I don’t know, seemed safe enough to me.

With the second half gone the cigar has become woody, not cedar, oak maybe. It’s definitely thicker, anyway, and there’s a little peaty whisky in there. I wish I could say that the predominant flavour in this cigar was chorizo and agave, but alas, much as the German regionals rarely evoke flavours of beer and sausage, the Mexican ones taste only of Cuba. I suppose the Swiss ones do occasionally have some chocolate.

The Lucha Libre, Mexico’s acrobatic masked wrestling code, is held at a colosseum in Mexico City. The cheap seats are in the dress circle, where a cyclone wire dome above the ring prevents the screaming fans from falling onto the mat below. The beer seller quickly clocked my friends and I as foreign party-boys out for a good time, and kept the five peso (50c) plastic cups of Sol in ready supply. My favourite wrestler was Mr. Mexico, who looked like Freddy Mercury in silver pants; I hoped that at the end he would be revealed as the President of Mexico performing a publicity stunt, and perhaps he was: my Spanish is mediocre at best, and my knowledge of Mexican politics even worse.

I remember that on the walk back to our hotel my friend observed that the streets were very dimly lit, and that the guidebooks had characterised this area as “rough.” He suggested that we had best be on our guard. I also remember that we stopped at a street vendor for chorizo tacos, and that those tacos were more or less the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. I’ve ordered chorizo tacos at every opportunity since then, but have never been able to recreate the experience.

In the final inch the nicotine begins to catch up with me, a slight wooziness and pain around the temples – one should never underestimate the amount of leaf getting burned in these fat boys. I also have a huge crick in my neck from trying to type in a hammock. It ends well, not nearly as bitter as I’d expect, with final notes of grass, wood, and a sweet herbal tang.

At the risk of drawing a very long bow, I’d say that like Mexico City, the Conde 54 is a safe cigar, and more or less indistinguishable from many similar regional editions (major metropolises). Perhaps it’s in the countryside that you find the real Mexico, the dangerous, beautiful, crazy Mexico; the El Conde 109 Mexico.

Overall the Conde 54 falls somewhere at the upper end of good, not as good as it’s predecessor, but better than a Monte 4, many of the collector’s humidors, and the more lacklustre LEs.

[Note on hammocks: I debated making this article entirely a blow by blow journal of things falling out of my hammock, but decided ultimately that writing about Mexico would be more interesting for the reader. Suffice to say that after I spilled my cocktail on my crotch for the third time, I went and dragged over a seat on which to rest my various apparatus. From there, the following steps repeated ad nauseam:

1) The cigar would blow off the seat where it was resting.

2) I’d lean over to get the cigar, and the cushion that was doing a very lacklustre job of preventing neck pain while using the laptop would fall out.

3) I’d pick up the cigar and place it on the bench, then go for the cushion.

4) While dusting off the cushion, the hammock would start swinging, and I’d knock the cigar back onto the ground.

An ashtray really would have helped. You don’t even want to know the process involved in balancing the cigar on the edge of the hammock for the photos.]

Edmundo Dantes Conde 54 Edición Regional Mexico 2011 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109 Edición Regional Mexico 2007

Posted on May 15, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Regional, Edmundo Dantes

Mid-May, readers, and I’m exactly where I was four months ago: the Groom compound, shirtless with a dark and stormy. What a summer! (For the foreigners, shirtlessness in Melbourne typically ends in March, or at the absolute latest, with Daylight Savings in April). Today I’m smoking an Edmundo Dantes el Conde 109, a cigar regular readers may recall from earlier in the season. That one was an unbanded single, an Edmundo Dantes only in my mind; this is the real deal. Will my hypothesis hold up?

The opening photo from that issue showed the Dantes on a table, wet and glistening in the sun. Nobody enquired as to why my cigar might be wet, but nonetheless I’m about to tell you: my name is A. T. Groom, and I am a rinser.

The rinsing technique did the rounds of the cigar aficionado community a few years ago, and we divided pretty firmly along the lines of ‘people who’ve tried it and sort of believe in it’ and ‘people who thought it was a joke.’ I’m not sure who started it, but it got a big boost when Min Ron Nee, the author of the definitive work of Cuban cigar aficionadoism, An Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Cuban Cigars, came down firmly in favour (so much so that since then it is usually referred to as “Min Ron Nee’s Rinsing Technique”, even though he is plainly not the progenitor) . The technique involves running the cigar head first under a tap for a few moments immediately before lighting. The oils in the wrapper repel most of the water, but that last minute dose of moisture supposedly helps the cigar burn cooler and more evenly throughout. I haven’t been too scientific about it, but I can confidently say that if it doesn’t help it at least does no harm. Well, not much harm: if you handle it roughly while it’s wet the wrappers are a bit prone to tearing, but that’s on you. At any rate, rinsing is fun, and while I don’t do it with every smoke, I do do it when it’s convenient and when I remember. I did it with that cigar, and I did it with this one.

The Dantes begins excellently, low-medium tobacco with a hint of spice and cream. Throughout the first inch the cream grows, and although it never quite reaches the velvety decadence of the possible Dantes 109, it is nonetheless excellent. There is a very strong sweet undertaste that is just delicious. Reminds me of a pavlova, a sweet mess of sugar and cream. And, y’know, fire and tar and whatnot.

Now that I think about it, I nearly discovered the rising technique by accident six or so years ago when I was smoking a Monte 4 in a Jacuzzi and the cigar fell from my lips during a particularly uproarious guffaw. I fished it out immediately and was surprised to discover that the cigar was still lit, and appeared to have suffered no damage from the experience. It had also had enough heat in it to singe my chest hair underwater. I didn’t think to note whether or not the flavour was improved post-dunking, but in retrospect I’m sure that it was.

Into the second half the draw tightens considerably and grows a bit tar flavoured although I’ve no idea how that’s possible. The tightness of a cigar’s draw is a product of its construction: how tight the leaves are rolled together, and how much smoke can pass between them. I don’t see any way that a cigar can grow tighter as it burns – if anything it should grow looser as the tightly bound portions are combusted – and yet this one has. The only solution I can offer is that perhaps only a portion of the cigar is burning, and I am having to puff harder to fan the smaller coal, although upon inspection that does not appear to be the case.

Curious, I take to the business end fairly vigorously with the bottom of the lighter, scraping out a lot of ash and messing the thing right up, but not finding a coal. The leaves are blackened, but not on fire. Is it smouldering? Although smoke still draws, I apply some flame, which improves things a little, although not as much as I’d hope. Perhaps the breeze is bothering it, or perhaps the proximity of the heat caused something lower in the cigar to expand, and tighten the draw.

For a fleeting moment I wonder if perhaps the rinsing technique is the source of my troubles. Surely not. In the final third the cream has gone, and with it much of the sweetness. The flavour at this stage is a broad bitter coffee.

Whatever ever else has resulted, my physical abuse of the nub has removed a good deal of tar from the business inch, and the cigar ends quite lightly, bittersweet, with a murmur of cream and coffee.

This Edmundo Dantes was not nearly as good as the last one, although the flavour profile was similar enough that I’m willing to conclude that they were the same cigar, and chalk the differences up to storage, climate, mood, variation within boxes, how long before rolling the dusky torcedora had washed her hands, what I had for breakfast and so on.

It’s a good cigar: not the classic it can be when it’s on, but nonetheless excellent. Better than a Monte 4 and a great deal else, sitting somewhere at the upper end of the middle echelon.

Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109 Edición Regional Mexico 2007 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo Double Corona Edición Limitada 2001

Posted on May 10, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

It’s a slightly overcast Saturday, and, wandering down a local bike path that runs between the freeway sound wall and an urban drainage canal, I find myself in a pleasant little glade of pine trees, not so unlike the fens and spinneys of my youth. The central feature of the glade is a fallen tree – so perfect a seat that one suspects it was felled specifically for the purpose. Either way, it’s just the place to sit, to watch the cyclists, to enjoy a sly beer, and to smoke a Montecristo Double Corona, Edición Limitada 2001.

It’s a lovely looking thing this double corona, with the classic dark EL wrapper. This came out in only the second year of the EL program, and the Cubans still hadn’t quite decided what they were doing yet: there were five cigars that year, and this isn’t even the big one! Unlike the previous year, there is a number on this band, although it’s not embossed. Like most aficionados I lament the changes the last decade has brought to the Cuban cigar industry; whenever there is a band change like the one Montecristo will undergo this year (they’re making the fleur-de-lys gold) my voice is among the many saying “no, don’t tamper with a classic, Cuba lives and dies on its heritage,” but I will concede that these faded, thin, non-embossed, badly printed bands do feel very insubstantial when compared to their modern equivalents. Of course, that’s entirely the charm, the idea that your luxury cigars are a product of a shambolic command economy, but I will concede that the packaging of modern Cubans is better, if less charming.

I slice the cap and light it. The double corona has a real Cuban draw, tight and cool, and presents a wonderful elegance from the start, with a strong note of cedar and the slightest hint of coffee. Its age is very evident in the mildness of the tobacco throughout the first inch or so.

There was a period when I was a teenager and this drainage canal was equidistant from my house and the houses of three of my closest friends, and as it had the additional advantage of being dark and fairly private, we used to come down here from time to time to drink beers and get high. I have memories of cruising police officers occasionally shining their torches on us in the night, shouting across the water, demanding to know what we were doing and telling us to move along, although as the road only runs along one side, and that side was invariably not the side we were on, and the bridges are few and far between, their threats were largely impotent. I used to use the canal as a thoroughfare, too, when traveling home from my friend’s houses, and in that I encountered the same problem as the police: a lack of bridges. The width of the waterway at its narrowest point fluctuates between one and three meters across (dependent on how recently it has rained). When at its nadir the distance represented no challenge to a champion hurdler like me, and when at its zenith I knew not to test it, and would make the lengthy detour to the footbridge. It was when it was in about the middle, one and a half to two meters, that I got myself into trouble. The problem was not so much the distance – I was pretty good at gauging the length of my own leap – but that if the water was falling rather than rising it would have left a slippery sheen of invisible slime on the concrete of either bank, something I invariably failed to anticipate (remember I was usually undertaking this trek while at least mildly [and often heavily] inebriated). More than once I went to leap only to find my footing disappear from under me, and more than once I found myself waist deep in that foetid, slimy water. I’d have to hose myself off in the garden before going in the house. I ruined more than one pair of shoes.

After the halfway point the cigar shows some bitterness and a hint of the dark chocolate and coffee found in the C and D, although this cigar is much more refine and pleasant than either of those. The tobacco is thickening a little but is still very light. The ash is a lovely white, and, had I left it unmolested, I think it probably would have held for the entire length of the thing (although I value my pants too much to try).

My friends and I never used to come down as far as this glade, and I can’t imagine the rozzers doing it now, but nonetheless, discretion is the better part of valour and I’m keeping my beers concealed behind the log. They’re two beers from the Japanese Hitachino brewery, one a heavy and bitter espresso stout, the other a ginger infused ale. Neither is particularly good (or tastes particularly strongly of either ginger or espresso), but they both exhibit a similar sort of vaguely bitter, vaguely coffee, mild sort of taste that complements, or at least matches the Double Corona. A cyclist inspects me on my log with my beer and cigar and comments “very nice” as he zooms by.

As always, when six inches of tar have accumulated in the final one, the cigar becomes very bitter, real heavy 95% cocoa chocolate stuff; unpleasant, but in an enjoyable kind of way. The burn has been impeccable the entire length, requiring nary a touch up nor a relight.

The interesting thing to me about the Double Corona is how similar its flavour pallet is to the C and D, and how distinct those are from the Robustos and the later ELs. I’ve seen this cigar brought up as an example of how the early ELs are not aging well, but it’s not that; what it is evidence of is that the early ELs need a lot of age. The C and D are both mediocre at the moment, but I think with another few years they could be as good as this cigar, and with a few years to iron out its kinks, this cigar could be something amazing.

At present it’s better than a Monte 4, and a good deal of the rest of the field.

Montecristo Double Corona Edición Limitada 2001 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo Double Corona Réplica de Humidor Antiguo

Posted on May 4, 2013 by atgroom under Montecristo, Réplica de Humidor Antiguo

The Replica Antique Humidor series is an annual release of a few hundred humidors: one brand per year; fifty cigars in each box. The cigars are generally large, a trophy smoke, but nothing too spectacular: normally it’s a repeat of something that appeared a few years prior in an LE or commemorative humidor. The humidors themselves are always very beautiful, classically styled things, supposedly modelled on ancient humidors, although the provenance of these has never been explained to my satisfaction. Are they custom humidors from private collections? Old special releases? I’ve wandered around the Tobacco Museum in Havana, I don’t recall seeing an old humidor and thinking “that looks just like a replica antique!” I like to think that there’s a humidor sleuth, travelling the garage sales of the world, looking for a particularly choice old box to bring back and copy.

I often think that the market for these things is people who want to buy themselves a nice humidor rather than cigar collectors. As releases they’re not that significant, but the humidors are beautiful. I’ve had the pleasure of inspecting a few firsthand: exquisite marquetry. Set fire to those pesky double coronas and you’d have yourself a very nice desktop.

I set fire to the pesky double corona, and find the draw on the firm side but very acceptable. It opens mildly, dry paperbark tree over light tobacco, a hint of earth and dusty haylofts.

I’ve mixed myself a rough mojito; a few leaves of mint from the garden (placed in a palm and heartily slapped – releases the menthol), a spoonful of sugar, and a few chunks of old fridge-dried lemon (I didn’t have any limes or even fresh lemons), macerated together, then topped off with a free poured slug of rum and about twice as much soda. It’s surprisingly not bad. Not bad at all.

The rum in question is a cheap Cuban rum that appeared in Australian markets with the rum boom of the last few years, named for Santiago de Cuba, an industrial shithole on the opposite end of the island to Havana. When travelling in Cuba I tracked the price (and mainly subsisted on) Cuban ‘pizza,’* and found that it decreased linearly the further I got from the tourist towns. Nowhere was it cheaper than in Santiago de Cuba.

Santiago de Cuba was once the seat of the Bacardi Empire – there’s a Bacardi museum there, and a statue of their patriarch, and I think I saw the old family home. On the waterfront is the old Bacardi rum factory, atop the pinnacle of which is a giant bottle, visible from all over town. The factories have been nationalised, of course, and I had always assumed that they were making Havana Club in there; Havana Club, after all, seemed to be the national rum, and what else would they produce in their nationalised rum factories? I realise now that that assumption was incorrect. I realise now that they were producing Santiago de Cuba.

In the middle the cigar has thickened up into heavy tobacco, bit of tar. Bitter coffee is certainly present, and some note of vanilla.

It was Saint Valentine’s Day the day I first set foot in Santiago de Cuba – I was having dinner with a male friend, and I remember that we’d remarked on the date in passing (he’d mentioned trying to call his girlfriend back home later on when the time zones were right). Unlike Havana, Santiago doesn’t get a steady trade of tourists, and English speaking private restaurants are few and far between, and rather than seek one out we decided just to take the easy way out and dine at the main tourist hotel, a beautiful old place on top of the hill.

The waiter was overjoyed to see us, and ushered us into an intimate little dining room where he seated us at a lace covered corner table, a single rose between us. We ordered a bottle of red and two steaks, and while we waited the entertainment came over, two elderly Cuban men, one with a violin, who serenaded us with Spanish love songs. The wine that arrived was a good deal sweater than we’d anticipated, and a perfect pale rose pink, and was served in very dainty glasses, and the steak, when it came, had suffered the unfortunate Cuban treatment of being battered with cheese and ham. The other treatment the steaks had received was slightly less usual: they had been cut into love hearts. We ate quickly and quietly, and summoned the bill as soon as the last morsel had been swallowed, but the waiter wouldn’t bring it. Dessert, he told us, was on the house. One slice of cheesecake. Two spoons.

We quickly skulked away after dinner, down the hill and into the dimly lit streets, looking furtively for somewhere where we wouldn’t look quite so much like a homosexual couple on a special Valentines date. We followed the sound of music and voices to a dank little low ceiling club, where the kids were smoking unfiltered cigarettes and grinding against one another. It would do. “Dos mojito, por favour.”

The bartender was sceptical of my convertible pesos, but eventually we reached an accommodation and two mojitos arrived, served in old jam jars. They were rough mojitos, free poured, with old limes, undissolved sugar, flat soda and too much rum. They were surprisingly not bad. Not bad at all. A lot like my mojito today.

Maybe it’s the rum.

The double corona is a good cigar, but in the field of Montecristo super exotics there is little to distinguish it. The tobacco is obviously first class, and it presents a good Montecristo profile, but there’s not a lot to distinguish it in either direction. It’s better than a Monte 4, and the C, and D, and the others that I had problems with, but it’s not up there with the greats like the Maravillas No. 1 or the Edmundo Dantes.

*Allegedly, Fidel Castro’s favourite foods are pizza, ice-cream and Coca-Cola, a facsimile of all of which is universally available on the island. The Coca-Cola equivalent is Tu Cola (English: Your Cola), and tastes kind of like Pepsi Max; the ice-cream is sort of watery soft serve (I only had one, it tasted like rose water); and the pizza is a thick, doughy slice of bread with melted cheese on top. Very occasionally you find it offered with ham or some other additional topping at a higher price. The standard procedure is to fold the slice in half and pour about a cup of scalding hot cheese oil from the fold before eating; you usually burn your mouth anyway, but it helps. Prices ranged from twenty five local pesos in Havana (one euro, approximately), to five pesos in Santiago de Cuba.

Montecristo Double Corona Réplica de Humidor Antiguo on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo A Montecristo Humidor

Posted on April 27, 2013 by atgroom under Commemorative Release, Montecristo

Here’s a question: have we learnt anything from five centuries of European tobacco? Do the smokers of today, with the benefit of our computers, of our collective hive consciousness, of our advanced theories of knowledge; do we enjoy the combustion of fragrant leaf any more than did our long expired predecessors?

What was the last real development in cigar smoking? The rinsing technique? (more on that later). Is anyone out there working to develop our hobby? What giant’s shoulders will the smokers of tomorrow stand upon, when trying to discover the perfect path to nicotine nirvana? Is anybody working on this?

Well yes. I am. In this edition of A Harem of Dusky Beauties we are going to go on a journey of discovery. This is real science here people. Or real hokum, I suppose, depending on your perspective. Today we’re taking cigars tantric.

My subject is the Montecristo A from the aforementioned Montecristo Humidor (as long a cigar as Cuba rolls; if I can’t find enlightenment within its four or so hours, then no cigar contains it). The setting is a small, sealed room (a bathroom, if I’m honest). I have heated it to 40°C, and unrolled a simple yoga mat, and over the stereo I play a gentle melody of pan-pipes and forest sounds. At the head of the mat I place my ashtray, my sweat towel and several cartons of coconut water.

Before I light the cigar I bring my head down to the floor in the Child’s Pose and relax. I breath deep, in and out, slowing my heartbeat to the rhythm of the earth. I clear my mind of my day to day concerns and focus on my intention for the session.

In Sanskrit the literal meaning of yoga is to join or unite, and so I hope to unite yoga with the world of Cuban cigar aficionadoism. The Cuban cigar is the most natural product in the world: its tobacco is grown by peasant farmers without fertilisers or pesticides; it is harvested by the calloused hands of itinerant labourers; it is dried in ancient wooden barns, before being transported to Havana by horse-cart where it is rolled into a cigar using nothing more than the hard thigh of a dusky virgin. A Cuban cigar is a totally natural relaxant that promotes meditation, and stimulates the mind and body! What better match than cigars and yoga! Lord knows the average cigar aficionado could use some toning up.

Rising from my meditation I light the cigar and work the floor, opening up my arms and legs, hinging from the hips and bowing into a forward fold. My awareness of my body begins to grow, as I practice my ujjayi breathing, deep breaths from the diaphragm, regular to my movement. I come to all fours and raise my hips up into Downward Facing Dog, holding the pose, stretching out my back, my spine, before bringing it down through a vinyasa and into a sun salute. I inhale, very light tobacco, notes of cedar, a little cream, and then hold the breath as I go back through the stretch, letting the smoke cool in my mouth before exhaling through the nose. I go through the exercise for several more tokes before kicking the right leg high, my weight over my heart centre. I feel it beat with the rhythm of my breath; I feel it beat with the rhythm of the Montecristo A.

Forty five minutes in, and it’s so fucking hot in this room. When I’m upright sweat sticks in the hair on my legs; when inverted it runs down my arms and face, and I have to wipe it away before each new puff on the cigar. Sweat is good, sweat cleanses, but it’s no fun producing it. Taking a moment’s break in the lotus position I mop my forehead with the towel and take a drink from my coconut water. The cigar has thickened up, medium tobacco now, strong cedar and floral with a little honey. The coconut water is a perfect complement, just enough flavour to clear the pallet, but light enough that it dissipates instantly, leaving nothing to effect the flavour of the leaf.

I work the legs, lunges and warrior poses, always returning with the breath to the Down Dog and the inhalation. I move through the balance poses, keeping the cigar in my mouth or hand, an extension of my body, an insectoid feeler that aids in finding my centre and adds extra height to my Ardha Chandrasana, my Moon Salute. Nine inches is a lot of tar to filter out, and toward the end the cigar grows very bitter, but never loses its class; every puff has been wonderfully refined, absolutely top quality tobacco.

After three and a quarter hours I lay the nub down in the ash tray and return to the child’s pose, my forehead on the mat. The cigar is utterly spent, and so am I. I feel my heart slow, then stop. My body begins to melt, forming tendrils that ease their way through the soft foam of the mat and down into the floor, finding the cracks in the tiles, moving between the grains in the cement slab, and then down into the dry earth. They weave around pipes, around bones, around rubbish and the remnants of prior civilizations, making their way into the bedrock. I move under the vast bulk of the Himalayas, the Andes; under the cool weight of the oceans, past laval vents and whale drops; past tectonic rifts and continental shelf. After a time I feel a tug, and my tendrils entwine with those of another. She embraces me and pulls me up, up toward a small island in the Caribbean, up toward a sheltered valley named Vuelta Abajo. I burst from the earth, strong and green, a crown upon my head. I flex my broad leaves up, reaching, saluting the sun, my every limb extended to its limit, basking in the radiant glow. I drink in the sun’s energy and feel its power within myself, storing it as fragrant aroma and humming nicotine. A warm tropical breeze sweeps across the valley floor, and my leaves join in the murmur of the leaves of a million of my sisters as we gently sway singing the song of the fields.

I am happy.

I awake with a start. A shiver runs down my spine. Hours have passed. The heater globe has gone out, and I lie in the dark on the cold, sweat-damp mat, my entire body stiff and aching. I stagger up and stare at my haggard face in the mirror, dark lines and crow’s feet, the speckled print of the yoga mat impressed upon my cheek. I reach out and touch the cold, dead glass. Is this all there is?

The Montecristo A from the Montecristo Humidor. Better than a Monte 4.

Montecristo A Montecristo Humidor on the Cuban Cigar Website.