Montecristo C Edición Limitada 2003

Posted on February 27, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

“Inconsistent” is the aficionado consensus on the C. There are a few very vocal maligners, there are a few staunch proponents, and in the middle there seems to be a general agreement that there were some good boxes and some bad; that at their best they were cocoa and cream, and at their worst they were bland and flavourless. One certainly can’t fault their pedigree: they shared the rolling bench with the legendary Cohiba Double Corona EL, which for my money are probably the best Edición Limitada and one of the best cigars ever to grace the virgin’s thigh (more on these later).

Cigars are best appreciated alone and best enjoyed with friends, so perhaps this afternoon – a glorious summers’ one that finds me drinking beers and talking shit with two old friends in my backyard – is not the best venue to tackle a controversial cigar like the C. The die, however, is cast: the cap is cut, Caesar has crossed the Rubicon, and smoke it I will.

(Historical Aside: I read once that alea iacta est, Caesar’s famous words upon crossing the aforementioned Italian waterway are a misquote, and should in fact read alea jacta esto; “throw the dice high” as opposed “the die is cast.” So it is, Monte C: you will burn today, but your flavours are by no means set in stone… wavering humidity… accompanying beverages… my own fickle moods… anything could happen. Let’s play.)

The draw is loose; not a total wind tunnel, but a long way from a Cuban draw, and there is a light, gusty breeze blowing also that will do it no favours. The first puffs are tannic and bitter, surprising for a cigar this age. I let it settle, hoping the bitterness is an artefact of the lighting and will pass, but it continues well beyond the first puffs. The only detectable flavour behind it is a sort of smooth, medium tobacco.

My friend Argus is smoking a Monte 3 with some age on it, and Stevespool, who “can’t handle a whole cigar” sits with us, occasionally sneaking a puff from one or the other cigar as it sits in the ashtray. After one such pull on the C I ask his opinion. “It tastes like a cheap cigar,” he observes. I somewhat concur. There is definitely none of the stink of Nicaragua in this cigar, but the sentiment is correct. It is not especially pleasant.

We suckle sweet Peroni in the sun, talking shit and telling ribald anecdotes. Argus is a historian by training, and laments the self-sabotaging nature of his industry, where there’s no private sector to speak of and jobs for academics are limited to a fraction of the students studying under them, so by definition most graduates will be unemployed. Oscar Pistorius is in the news, and conversation about him quickly degenerates into jokes about robot killing machines.

With half remaining Stevespool takes another drag. “That’s got a lot better,” he observes “with kind of an interesting aftertaste.” When pushed for a taste he eventually lands on “fluffy tires… like fairy floss made from rubber… it’s not offensive, but just sort of an airy tingle.” He giggles. I’m not sure I see the sweetness myself. The rubber is certainly there. Of the two he prefers the Monte 3.

We wander across hopes and dreams and money making capers. We’re all at an age where things are getting serious: Argus has a child on the way, Stevespool a wedding, I am dabbling in home ownership, and for us now is the time when schemes must be enacted. If we want to be drinking our own single-malt at our son’s 21st birthdays, we really have to consider putting it under oak immediately. Stevespool has a chemistry degree somewhere in his shady past, and we interrogate him as to the possibilities for creating a chemically perfect scotch not with centuries of tradition but with science. He isn’t very helpful, although he does offer quite a few insights into how alcohol alters brain chemistry.

The afternoon is turning to evening and we order a pizza. I’m a little drunk, but just afternoon drunk; even priests are drunk on Sunday afternoons.

One or two brief moments aside the Monte C has tasted plain and bitter, with perhaps a little straw and medium tobacco detectable somewhere in the aftertaste. If this is cocoa then it’s unsweetened cocoa powder eaten straight from the tin. Bitterness in cigars is usually a fault I assign to the smoker; he is smoking too fast, the cigar is burning too hot, scorching the smoke. In this instance, however, I don’t think this is the case. For one, the C has lasted a good 30 minutes longer than Argus’ comparably sized Monte 3, and for two, this thing has been so bitter that I’ve found myself instinctively giving it a lot of space between drags.

I let it go a few puffs sooner that I otherwise would. The pizza is here. Perhaps if I had smoked this cigar alone I might have been able to appreciate it, but as it stands, whilst I enjoyed this pleasant afternoon with my friends, I would have enjoyed it more so with a Monte 4.

Montecristo C Edición Limitada 2003 on the Cuban Cigar Website

Montecristo D Edición Limitada 2005

Posted on February 20, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

Honestly, I remember nothing about this cigar. I was on the scene when they were released and I’ve had them before, but I don’t remember the reviews, I don’t remember the consensus, and I don’t remember any tasting notes. I remember the C, that controversial little cracker, and I remember the Robustos, and of course the more recent entries, the Sublime and the Grand Edmundo but the D? Nothing.

It’s a beautiful size, a elegant Lonsdale, with a nice wrapper, dark and oily. It has punch right from the start. Strong coffee and cream, with a real espresso hit on the back. Beautiful.

I’m drinking a Coca-Cola with it. At one point in my life I lived in China, and in Shanghai’s cigar lounges by far the most common accompaniment to a fine cigar is an icy glass of Diet Coke. Many Chinese have an allergy to alcohol, strong liquor especially, and that excludes them from the whiskey and rum cults we find in western cigar lounges. Outside the lounges they drink a lot of tea, but I’ve never seen it inside one. Perhaps it doesn’t have a strong enough flavour to complement the cigar. In any case, I asked a Chinese friend about it once and he told me that they drank Coke to “cut some of the bitterness.” I’ve drunken it with my own cigars on many occasions, and he’s right, it does remove a lot of the tar and compliments a cigar quite nicely. If it has a fault it’s that it is perhaps a bit too cloying, drowning the tastebuds a little, and were I compiling a definitive tasting notes guide I would probably avoid it, but for a casual smoke I think it works. I will also add the proviso that it should also be watered down with ice, and please, Coke only, no Pepsi. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke and doesn’t have the same complexity; in Coke if you concentrate you can taste the three citrus flavours – lemon, lime, and orange – as well as cinnamon, vanilla and whatever the secret ingredient is. I also have my reservations about Coke in America, which uses high-fructose corn syrup rather than the sugar we have in the rest of the world. I understand you can get proper Coke with sugar around Easter, Americans: it’s called “kosher for Passover” or something like that. Maybe one of those froufrou high end natural colas would work as well. I’ll have to try it.

It’s a wonderful day, blue skys, high twenties, but the wind is a little squally and I think it’s stoking the cigar a bit, because at a little over halfway an ashy, bitter taste begins to creep in, a sure sign that the cigar is burning too hot. Once I let the flavour fade on my tongue I’m left with a medium tobacco flavour, some hint of bean. Perhaps the Coke is ruining this cigar: it began so well, but is getting worse as it goes on. From the first puff this was shaping up to be a magnificent cigar, those full lashings of coffee has me convinced that into the second half I would be in a world of chocolate and sweet spice, but instead I just have bitterness over a little tobacco.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, this is still obviously a cigar of the highest quality, burn has been impeccable, and you can taste the obvious quality in the leaf – I’ll take the Pepsi challenge with this and a non-Cuban any day of the week – but it just disappoints a bit when compared to my high expectations.

By the end of these reviews I’m usually a little tipsy, and I wonder if my enjoyment of the cigar is coloured by insobriety; my best self is the one with two to four standard drinks inside him. No, that can’t be it; I had that first Monte 4 cold sober and that was a cracker. As I toss the nub of this cigar, I observe that I have no buzz at all from the nicotine, and, in fact, I kind of want another cigar. Something short and punchy like a Cohiba Panatela. I wonder if I have any left.

The Montecristo D: begins well, ends less so. Perhaps it’s in a sick period.

Montecristo D Edición Limitada 2005 on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo Maravillas No.1 Colección Habanos 2005

Posted on February 14, 2013 by atgroom under Colección Habanos, Montecristo

The Montecristo Maravillas No.1, from the 2005 Colección Habanos series: the book humidors. They’re great looking things those book humidors, and I love them as collectables; I imagine those lucky few who have the entire set arrayed on a bookcase somewhere (presumably in their gothic library of leather-bound volumes, concealing the secret entrance to their walk in humidor) feel a great sense of personal satisfaction, but I could never buy one myself because of what they contain: Habanos S.A.’s annual experiment into the upper limits of cigar ring gauge. 55 by 182! I can’t put this thing in my mouth! I have to hold it between two fingers and puff at it through gently pursed lips!

I light it and puff at it through gently pursed lips and it begins excellently. The draw is a little loose; the flavour classic high end Montecristo, more Especial than Edmundo. Cream, straw, a little nutty (almonds, maybe?), all over a wonderful lightly toasted tobacco of the highest grade. The thesis of this blog was originally the smoking of exotics, the unsmokables, and in my mind I often imagine the readers complaining about the cigars I smoke not being exotic enough (“Monte Open! What is this rubbish!” the imaginary critic cries, navigating away in disgust). Well, this cigar is a true exotic: 500 humidors, 20 cigars per humidor, 10,000 in total and it’s eight years old to boot.

I’m pairing this with a Hahn Millennium Ale. In the heady days of 1999, Hahn released these beers in a longneck under a champagne cork, with the yeast still in the bottle so that it would get better with age. Thirteen years later and I think it’s probably time. The angels had taken most of the neck. Moments after opening I realise my mistake: I should have paired this with a Millennium Jar cigar (more on those later). Ah well. At any rate, it’s a lovely colour, dark and red, and very sweet and rich, with a good amount of fizz, given its age. Burned hops. A little port. The surprising thing really is its origin: I would expect this beer from some Dutch microbrewery, but Hahn? The favourite beer of New South Wales (Australian state, capital Sydney), Hahn is very much a lowest common denominator inoffensive everyman lager. That they have the ability or even the aspiration to produce something like this is astounding. I’ve heard this described as the best beer every to come out of Australia, and thirteen years ago, before the microbrewery boom, that was probably true. Well, perhaps not the best – this beer is unpleasant in a lot of ways – but certainly the most complex.

The cigar is delightful, a real mellow, contemplative cigar. Not as in your face complex as the beer, but then, there is no element in the cigar that is unpleasant. The cream has gone, and I am left with a light tobacco and cedar flavour. Aromatic. A little floral.

I read on the internet that the Hahn Millennium Ale is based on Chimay Red, a Trappist Ale with which I have a more than passing familiarity. Perhaps it’s the thirteen years it spent in the bottom of my laundry cupboard, but they are nothing alike, the Hahn possessing a far richer flavour. I mention it though, because this seems like the only opportunity I’ll ever have to tell the story of Nathan, and confess to a crime that has been weighing on me for five long years.

In 2008 I lived in Japan, and there came into contact with Nathan. He was the flatmate of one of my high-school friends, an American in his mid-30s, and an alcoholic. We all partied pretty hard in Japan – it’s that kind of a place. Booze is cheap and available everywhere, and you can drink it openly on the streets. You can buy beer from vending machines, you can smoke in hospitals, and there’s not really such a thing as a bouncer. Nathan though, he took it to another level. He drank hard in bars, always beer, and would lock you in a corner and insist on telling you about his problems; about his ex-wife, about his disabled sister, and about the problems with his father and things of that nature. When the bar closed and his friends had all abandoned him he would go home and drink a bottle of Jack Daniels alone and in the dark, muttering to himself.

There was one bar in particular that Nathan liked, the Hub, where he was known as Mr. Chimay. Years before he’d requested that they stock it, and they kept a case behind the bar especially for him. He’d walk in, wave to the bartender, and take a seat, and moments later his Chimay would materialize.

I’d known him six months, and honestly, I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me, but we were in the same circle and so on Halloween I found myself dressed as Hugh Hefner and smoking a pipe in his living room. It was early, and almost all of the guests were planning to leave before too long and go to a better party. Nathan was inexplicably in his street clothes until about 9:30 when he called for silence and dimmed the lights. He turned on the TV, pressed play and disappeared into his bedroom. The Star Wars theme began to blast, and on the TV screen began, in the style of the Star Wars opening scroll, an essay telling the story of Nathan’s life in Japan. For minutes it went on, while the assembled throng stood around awkwardly, wanting to be polite, but utterly disinterested in this presentation. The final words of the scroll read “…and his name was DARTH CHIMAY”, and as they appeared on screen the theme transitioned into the Imperial March and Nathan emerged, now clad in full replica Darth Vader costume, and clutching a Chimay Red in each hand.

The lengthy pause had been the death knell of the party, and ten minutes later everybody began to make their excuses. As I prepared to walk out the door it occurred to me that I had a lengthy train ride ahead of me and no alcohol on my person, so I opened the fridge, and there on the shelf was the only booze left in the house: two Chimay Red. As I pocketed them both I looked over my shoulder, and there for a moment caught Nathan’s eye (he’d removed the helmet almost immediately). There was such a look of disappointment on his face, perhaps more at his rapidly imploding party than at my criminal act, but nonetheless, I felt bad, at least for the two minutes it took me to walk down the stairs. The Chimay was nice. It tided me over all the way to the bar. Sorry Nathan.

There’s no tannin at all in this cigar, and if I had a book of them I’d seriously consider smoking them all right now, as it seems perfectly aged. I detect a little buttered toast, and maybe a hint of salt. In a cigar this thick one expects a certain robustness, a dose of nicotine and spice, but this is really very elegant. I’ve been smoking for two hours now, and at least two smokable inches remain.

Forty five minutes later, and with less than an inch to go the cigar offers me a little tar, although very little considering the amount of fragrant leaf that has been burned. I’ve finished the Millennium Ale, and honestly, I’m quite drunk. It advertises itself as 8%, although with 13 years of evaporation and distillation who knows what it is today. Perhaps 14%, perhaps 4%. I feel quite woozy. Perhaps it’s the nicotine. There’re a lot of factors involved, really.

Either way, both were magnificent. The best Montecristo? The best Australian beer? Honestly, in this moment I can’t recall one better alternative to either, but then, in my current state I’m very much a biased narrator. The nub burns my fingers and gets thrown over the balcony, but I instantly regret it. Please, just one more puff. In any analysis it has been a marvellous way to spend a lazy afternoon.

Montecristo Maravillas No.1 Colección Habanos 2005 on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo Grand Edmundo Edición Limitada 2010

Posted on February 7, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

It’s 11am and I’ve just fixed myself a nice rum and ginger beer. I’m lying on a banana lounge in the lee of the house at the Groom compound, and have positioned myself so that the sun falls over exactly half my bare torso. I have done this because yesterday I smoked a cigar on the other side of the house about this time, and as a result one half of my body is quite pink, while the other remains its usual fish belly white. I’m trying to even out the pink.

Such is the life of the cigar aficionado; it’s not all high quality smokes and rum drinks in the sun, you know. Well, okay, that is all it is, but sometimes you get sunburned.

I estimate that in about an hour and a half the sun will have moved in the sky and my chest will be entirely in the shade, and so I have looked through my travel humidor to find the cigar that would most closely match that smoking time, and settled on this, the Montecristo Grand Edmundo. Also my harridan mother is expected to show up at 2:00, and I’d like to be done by then.

This is the seventh Montecristo to wear the EL band, and one of the best received, and as of this writing it is still available at a somewhat reasonable price if one sets one’s mind to it.

I light it, and it opens like a lily to the light; a rich, powerful cream, the froth from a cappuccino with a dusting of nutmeg. Wonderful.

It’s an ugly looking stick. There is a split part way down the side which is very probably my fault, but there is also a smear of what looks like glue about halfway down (probably Habanos’ fault, although I suppose it’s plausible that one of the middlemen whose hands it passed through before mind did it), and a discolouration in the wrapper near the end (definitely Habanos). I can’t say I mind: the cigar is perfectly constructed and smoking wonderfully; these blemishes are maker’s marks, testament to the hand wrought nature of the Cuban cigar.

The ash is a nice pale colour, matching with some exactness the weathered boards of my deck. I let it keep it a while, and it holds strong, the mark of good construction.

The eye of heaven has moved, and now only my arm is in his light. I inspect it, and it glistens slightly, moisture present between the hairs. Is that sweat, I wonder, or my jus, leaking out of me like it leaks out of a roasted chicken. I question for a moment the logic of this decision. I’m used to laughing in the face of mouth cancer, but is it sensible to bait melanoma as well?

The cigar is great, wonderfully rich, with sweet vanilla bean and cream dominating. I’m a sucker for an EL. A lot of aficionados don’t like them, and their criticisms – that they all taste kind of the same, that they cost too much, that the sizes are unimaginative, and that it’s a shame they have to come at a cost of so many discontinuations – are all perfectly valid, however, that EL flavour, that richness, the sweetness and notes of coffee and chocolate, I just love it.

The wind has shifted. Previously it was a hot wind, blowing from the landward side, and I was sheltered from it on this side of the house, but now it blows from behind me, from the ocean. It’s cool, and provides a nice relief for my roasted flesh, however, it is no longer possible to leave my cigar perched on the rim of my dark and stormy; now I must shelter it with my body, lest the wind steal my puffs, and set it to burning too hot. Sometimes to hot doth the cigar of Cuba burn.

Twelve forty five, and I wanderest entirely in the shade. I move my lounger over a little to catch the last of it. No sense in half measures.

Every fair from fair must sometime decline, and in the last inch the cigar shows its tar and nicotine. It’s not unpleasant, and what remains of the rum and ginger cuts it nicely. I like a little sweetness against a cigar, it offsets the bitterness, and especially at the end it… well, it cuts it nicely. Ginger too. Little tip when making cocktails: add a little ginger syrup to anything remotely fruity, and the reaction you get will inevitably be “mmm! That’s amazing! What is that?” Goes a lot way toward disguising a triple shot of gin, and even further to hiding a large amount of cheap rum.

I’m burning my fingers, a state I cannot brook, what with all the other burns that my body is enduring, and so this cigar must meet its maker; over the rail it goes, down, down, to the sandy soil.

Truly a delightful cigar, and by far the better of the Sublime I smoked recently. Perhaps not quite the equal of the possible Edmundo Dantes, but that speaks more to the quality of that cigar than any inadequacy in this one. Grab a box if you can.

Montecristo Grand Edmundo Edición Limitada 2010 on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo Open Regata

Posted on February 3, 2013 by atgroom under Current Production, Montecristo

The Montecristo Open line was introduced in 2009 as a cigar for the everyman; a cigar for the new smoker, the casual smoker and the teenage daredevil. Supposedly they are approachable and mild, a simple pleasure. They’re not intended for the aficionado market, but, as is the way with these things, the aficionado market is exactly the people who write the reviews, and I have never seen a new cigar get savaged like this one was. Flavourless and boring, they said! Life is too short to waste it smoking Montecristo Opens. I’m not sure how sales have done, but I see them around almost every time I go into a cigar store and I’ve been offered sticks from time to time by people who I consider to be everymen, so I suppose they’re doing alright. It’s a tough gig Habanos S.A. have for themselves, really, because they’ve discontinued so much that to the aficionado any new release has to justify itself as a worthy use of the tobacco that could have gone to their discontinued favourites, and that is always going be an uphill battle.

I was sent a single of each of the Open series shortly after their release in 2009, and have never smoked any of them (although I lost the junior to someone who said “oh, do you have anything smaller” at a party where I was handing out Mag 50s). When selecting this one my hand lingered for a moment on the Eagle, but I just couldn’t face the 54 ring gauge. This then, is the Montecristo Open Regata, a Petit Pirámides, and, I suppose, another failure in this blog’s stated mission of smoking exotic cigars. I make no apologies.

I’m having the cigar with a beer – not usually a good choice with cigars, but to my mind a casual, simple, unsophisticated drink, and the one most consumers of the Opens will have in their hand on the golf course, at the buck’s night, or outside the maternity ward where this cigar will be smoked. Beer is an everyman’s drink.

I clip it, light it, and begin. The draw is good, the construction un-reproachable. The flavour is fairly mild, but there’s nothing unpleasant about it; nothing to complain about.

NEWS FLASH! With around a millimetre of cigar burnt, as I placed it back on the table, the ash fell off, which is highly irregular in well-constructed Cuban, which usually maintain the integrity of the ash for several centimetres (and even then, it usually requires a vigorous tap before it falls). Furthermore, as I was taking this picture a slight breeze picked up the diminutive clump of ash, blowing it onto my sleeve. I can really see what the aficionados are talking about with this one. Poor ash retention: a big negative for the Montecristo Open Regata.

A few minutes later a second, slightly larger clump of ash fell, unbidden from this cigar, although the third held on sufficiently.

The first release of a cigar generally fetches a premium on the aged market because in many cases the first release is better. The Cohiba Siglo VI is the classic example of this: 2002 boxes are highly sought-after and command large premiums at auctions. Well, this Open, with three years of age, is a member of their first release. I don’t really know what to say about tasting notes. It achieves its stated intention, in that it is a mild cigar, with no complexity. There’s no spice, no cream, no mild bean or coffee, and at over half way there’s no bitterness or tar. What taste there is is the taste of smooth, mid tobacco. Honestly, the thing it reminds me most of is the Dunhill Mild cigarettes I used to smoke from time to time. I don’t consider that too much of a criticism; Dunhill Milds are a quality cigarette. I am enjoying the beer. Crisp. Hoppy.

In the final inch or so it gets bitter – not the bitter of tar and nicotine that I like, but an overly more chemical bitterness. It’s giving me a headache, honestly. Please note in these photographs the shittiness of my free cutter. I don’t usually use a cutter, honestly, but there’s really no other way to open a piramides and I can’t find my Xikar. Still, it did the job.

Ugh, actually, this is awful. I’m tossing it.

After tossing the cigar I notice a small melted ring on the edge of the cutter on which it had been resting, perhaps accounting for the chemical taste right at the end. Honestly, I really wanted to like this cigar, to come out against the reviews and say “no! The everyman has it right! Simple but great! The Monte Open is the way forward!” The reviews are right though. At best, this is an unremarkable cigar. At worst it is an unpleasant cigar. In either case it’s worse than a Monte 4.

Montecristo Open Regata on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109, Edición Regional Mexico 2007 (possibly)

Posted on January 30, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Regional, Edmundo Dantes

This cigar is a 109, the classic bullet tipped double corona, and currently it has no band. It was sent to me in late 2009 with no explanation, and when I enquired I was told that “it may be an Edmundo Dantes that I took the band off, but I do recall being sent a 109 but I forget what the storey was. I think it was some sort of special.”

There are eleven possible cigars that this could be, and straight away I can eliminate the Romeo 130^th Anniversary 109s, as while these are supposedly a 109 size, they lack the bullet tip that 109s traditionally have (more on these later). I also think I can eliminate the old Ramon Allones Gigantes 109, as that was discontinued in 1976, and this cigar seems fresher than that. It seems fresher to me too than either of the Partagas 109s from their 1995 and 2000 anniversary humidors, but I can’t outright dismiss them. My source has a predilection for removing unique or unusual bands, a habit that certainly fits with the two Partagas and the Edmundo Dantes, but not so much with the other remaining 109, the 2009 German regional.

Therefore, I conclude that this is probably an Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109. Or possibly a Partagas anniversary. Or perhaps a custom, or a Partagas mafia special (more on these later). Heck, maybe it’s a Nicaraguan. Do they make 109s? (humour).

Perhaps over the course of this review my finely honed aficionado pallet will be able to provide an answer?

It’s an odd duck, the Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109, and caused quite a stir on its release. Traditionally when commissioning a regional release the distributors are allowed to choose from the second tier brands: no Cohiba, no Romeo, no Upmann, and no Montecristo (and rightly so, as were this restriction not in place I’m certain that the regional release program would quickly degenerate into a dozen or so Cohiba giant perfectos being released every year). This cigar, of course, is not a Montecristo, but an Edmundo Dantes, a new brand with bands and packaging almost identical to that of Montecristo, and named after the central character in The Count of Montecristo, the same namesake as the Montecristo Edmundo. I have heard no official explanation from Habanos S.A. as to why Mexico was allowed to release a regional faux Montecristo, although I’ve seen “copyright reasons” bandied about as the reason for the Edmundo Dantes brand (an excuse that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, as I’m fairly sure they sell normal Montecristo cigars in Mexico). The reviews though have been universally excellent, and it’s a sought after collectors cigar for both its quality and novelty.

The cigar begins beautifully, velvet full cream milk from the first breath. Really wonderful, the best beginning I remember from a cigar in years. It’s viscous that cream note, raw full fat. Honestly it overpowers even the taste of the tobacco. There’s the slightest spice on the back pallet.

I’m on the deck at the Groom compound, and it couldn’t be nicer. A full open blue sky and just a whisper of gusty sea breeze. I am wearing a shirt, but not one button is buttoned. What a glorious day for a glorious cigar.

I have a beer by my side, steadily warming in the sun, and honestly I’m loath to open it as I don’t want to contaminate my pallet. It’s a Matilda Bay Fat Yak pale ale, probably the beer that has benefited most from the trend toward a higher class of beer that has been seen in Australia (and worldwide) in the last five years or so. When I were a lad we drank Carlton Draught, pure and simple, or perhaps a Coopers if you were deep in the heart of bohemia. Nowadays Fat Yak flows from every tap, and much else besides, and it’s not unusual that I enter a pub and am confronted with a slew of beers I’ve never seen before. I rail against connoisseurism in beer; beer to me is a working man’s drink, a simple low alcohol relaxant to sip on after work in order to remove a few stresses from the day and stop you going home to beat your wife. Real drinkers, real connoisseurs, and indeed, real wife beaters, should distil beer to its essence, to whiskey, if they want to be serious about something. Even as far as beers go I don’t care too much for Fat Yak (it’s too hoppy), but it’s hard to argue that it’s not an improvement on Carlton.

I didn’t bother to bring out an ashtray, and have been resting the cigar on the table edge, or the bottle cap, or whatever other detritus happened to be at hand, and the occasional gusts of wind have frequently sent it rolling (to my great distress). That is until I realised the great advantage of the 109’s unique conical top: it sits perfectly in the neck of a beer bottle.

It’s a good size the 109. Basically a Churchill but with a little bit of character. There were a lot more of them in the old days – the Partagas Lusitaniasused to be one – but they died out at some point. They’re on the way back in now, appearing from time to time as regionals or other limiteds, which brings us to our central question: is this an Edmundo Dantes or something else? Halfway through it is all mild, toasted tobacco. No spice at all, some earthy overtones, a little bean. It’s a first class cigar, that’s for certain, and certainly reminiscent of the better Monte ELs, the Grand Edmundo et al, but it doesn’t have what I would describe as the classic Montecristo flavour.

With two inches to go it goes out, and I relight it. The burn has been acceptable, but a little erratic the whole way through. This is the first extinguishment, but I’ve had to touch it up several times as the coal began to core. There is some ash and bitterness on the relight, but not much for a cigar this size. A great cigar. A classic.

What a way to spend a morning. I won’t lie; I removed my shirt some hours ago, and have been strutting up and down the deck like a pallid pasty lion, a hubris I’ll no doubt suffer for later on. Perhaps a gazelle more than a lion. I’m sorry, I’ve been reading Teddy Roosevelt’s book about big game safaris.

In the final moments the nicotine appears, although the tar is still very mild, with no bitterness. It has been more than two and a half hours since I lit up. I usually find that in the normal course of things I tend to smoke too quickly, and the cigar grows too hot, but when I’m taking frequent breaks to wax lyrical in these reviews it slows me down and the experience is much improved for it.

All good things must come to an end, and as the cigar begins to burn my fingers, I reluctantly heave the nub out into the highly flammable tea-tree.

Was this an Edmundo Dantes El Conde 109? Well, I wouldn’t bet money on it, but yes, I think it was. I’ll have to find another to compare.

Whatever it was, it was nonetheless an excellent cigar, and the better of anything I’ve smoked thus far for this blog; better than a Monte 4, better than a Monte Sublime, and better even than the Dunhill Selección No. 1. If you have the means I highly recommend you pick one up, whatever it is.

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

Montecristo Sublimes Edición Limitada 2008

Posted on January 27, 2013 by atgroom under Edición Limitada, Montecristo

A handsome brute with lovely milk chocolate wrapper. A summer evening down at the Groom Compound, a pastoral holding in rural Victoria that has been in my family for several generations. I am about to enjoy this cigar with a friend and colleague. We’ll sit on the upper deck, looking out over the trees toward the ocean where in the distance the green lights of the shipping channel markers flash quietly to themselves. Flash, flash, flash, flash, pause. Flash, flash, flash, flash, pause.

Also visible in this picture: Ernest Hemmingway’s Green Hills of Africa (a cigar aficionado who reads Hemmingway? How unusual), a 10 count travel humidor I got free with a box of Cohiba Piramides EL 2005 (more on those later), the keys to the Groom Compound, resplendent on their fake Ralph Lauren Polo key-ring, and the Nokia 6300 (the be all and end all of mobile telephony). Not sure what the cord is from. The wine is a 2007 French cleanskin. I always find the more mild French wines very enjoyable after the brutish Australian reds that make up most of my intake. Just a nice, ripe, refreshing fruit on the pallet.

We head out to the deck and turn off the lights in the house so as to better appreciate the full sky of stars so alien to city boys like us. There will be very few photos. I try a few times, but it is just too dark, and the flash looks horrid.

I pluck the cap of the cigar with my nail, and give the cigar an experimental puff. Draw a little loose, is my first thought. It also occurs to me the second the thing touches my lips that 54 is just too thick. The Cohiba Sublime in 2004 was the first Cuban parejo to breach 52, following the Nicaraguans on their quest for higher and higher ring gauges, and since then there have to have been ten or twenty more. ELs, REs, lord knows those book Humidors seem to find room for another few points of ring gauge every year. It makes no sense to me. It’s just too big! It’s not comfortable in the mouth! Who enjoys these things? What possible advantage is there to them?

The first flavour that jumps out of this cigar is wet earth. If I had to be specific, I would say that it is the smell of the sandy soil of a peninsula when the rains are coming in downwind. It hasn’t rained in a week or so, but it’s been hot and blowy and the air is full of dust. The rains are working their way toward you, a kilometre or so off, and the air is carrying the scent of that freshly wet sandy soil to you in advance.

I remember when I first bought these cigars… not these examples, but others like them. It was February 2009, and I had a meeting in Brisbane early in the morning. By 11am I was done, deposited in the Brisbane CBD, a city I had visited only briefly once before, and some decades previous. I was spending the night with a friend, but she was working, and I wasn’t scheduled to meet her till 5pm. It was hot and sticky in Brisbane, as it often is, and I was uncomfortable in my woollen suit. I had a pie with mushy peas, a delicacy not often found in Melbourne, and admired the long tan legs that sat below the short shorts of the Queensland girls.

There was a cigar shop I’d dealt with online from time to time in Brisbane, and I thought to myself that perhaps I’d visit it, put a face to the name on my shipping label, and then find somewhere shaded to enjoy a long smoke while I waited for my friend. 2009 was well into the era of the ubiquitous smartphone, but I was still using a Nokia 6300 (although, much like the Sublimes this rambling anecdote is nominally about, it was a different example of the breed than the one pictured above), and so I phoned a friend who I thought would be sitting in front of a computer, and asked him to look up the address of the cigar store and give me directions from my current location.

It was not too far away, five kilometres or so, but I got lost several times (necessitating further phone calls), and the way was very hilly, so when I arrived at the store (more a mail order operation than an elaborate divan), in a suburban terrace house I was out of breath and absolutely soaked through with sweat. Nonetheless, I was ushered into the cool of the walk in humidor (after a moist and reluctant handshake), where I selected a then newly released cigar that was all the buzz of the moment, the Montecristo Sublime Edición Limitada 2008.

I found a café with an air-conditioned terrace down but the river, and enjoyed the cigar immensely. I later bought a box.

Three inches in the dusty wet earth has disappeared, and the classic richness of an EL is starting to come through. Full bodied premium tobacco. A hint of spice. A little salt. Slight bitterness. Could be burning too hot, it’s hard to shield the cigars from the sea breeze that is blowing in. My colleague says he tastes Chocolate, “that bitter 95% cocoa stuff,” but I don’t taste it. It is lovely though. An excellent cigar.

He disappears into the house, and comes back a few minutes later with toast, half a slice buttered and half with a little Dijon mustard. They both complement the cigar wonderfully. The Dijon is a revelation.

It gets bitter toward the end as you’d expect; a 54 ring is a lot of tar. I pinch the nub to suck out the last of the smoke, right to my fingertips. Perhaps that’s the point of 54 – they make good nubs. I flick the butt into the trees. A noble end to a first class smoke.

Better than a Monte 4.

Montecristo Sublimes Edición Limitada 2008 on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo Dunhill Selección No.1

Posted on January 23, 2013 by atgroom under Discontinued, Montecristo

This is essentially a Montecristo No. 1 that has been banded as a Dunhill Selection. In the late 1960’s the Dunhill company reached a deal with the Cubans to produce a few brands for them and them alone, namely Don Candido, Don Alfredo and Flor Del Punto, as well as a number of cigars from other marques that were sold as Dunhill Selección cigars with special bands and boxes, of which this is one. All of these were discontinued in 1982 with the introduction of the Dunhill brand, and the Dunhill brand itself was discontinued in 1991 after a spat between Dunhill and the Cubans, but that’s a story for another day.

Like many of my singles, this cigar was given to me a gift and I can’t speak for certain as to its age, however, given the discontinuation date, it must be at least 30 years old, and quite possibly older. The Dunhill exclusive brands have all gone on to become legendary cigars, much sought after at vintage cigar auctions, however not so much these selection cigars. I think you’d struggle to find someone with specific enough insider knowledge of the late 1970s Cuban cigar industry to say for certain one way or the other whether these cigars were the same blend as the regular production Monte 1s (and I lack the necessary 30 year old regular Monte to tell you myself), but my suspicion is that they are probably identical. The difference, if there is one, would come from superior quality control on Dunhill’s end.

I set this one on fire, and my first thought is that is has a lot of punch for a cigar this old. Strong, rich, toasted tobacco right through the nose. Draw is perfect. Wonderful. I’m pairing this cigar with Ron Zacapa XO, a fine old rum for a fine old cigar. Zacapa XO is a blended rum (which is to say, rum blended with quite a lot of sugar if you ask me), and their copy tells us that it is composed of rums aged six to twenty five years. To think, a quarter of a century ago this rum was sugarcane, this cigar was fairly fresh, and I was wearing short pants.

An inch or so in and the flavour has mellowed out into something like what you expect from a very old cigar, but the cigar is having trouble holding its burn; I’ve had to retouch it several times. There is a gentle gusty breeze on the loose, and although I have moved the cigar into the lee of the Zacapa, it is nonetheless having trouble holding its ash. The ash itself is a dark, mottled grey, not the pure white that one often finds in elderly cigars like this.

I remember my first Monte No. 1. I purchased it for my 19^th birthday, and took it to a very nice cocktail bar with some friends. There were four of us, with two cigars between us, and being 19 year old boys with a lot more knowledge of James Bond than of life, we ordered martinis (quite possibly my first martini), which were listed on the menu for a then exorbitant price of $15. “We usually make them with Tanqueray” the waitress said, “but I can do them with Tanq 10 if you like… it’s a little smoother.” “Yes, yes, of course” we enthusiastically replied, having no idea what Tanqueray or Tanq 10 were, but wanting nothing but the best. The drinks came, and being nineteen and more accustomed to vodka raspberry than anything else (I don’t think I was even drinking beer at 19), we found them disgusting, and when the bill arrived at our table, which of course included the upsell price of $25 for the Tanq 10, we found ourselves disinclined to order another drink. The Monte No. 1, however, is not a short cigar, and so we soldiered on. We were laughing loudly, I’m sure, like the young hooligans we were, and one of my non-smoking compatriots was tearing up a box of candy cigarettes he had in his pocket and throwing the pieces into the candle, which was burning like a small bonfire. Eventually the glass candle holder cracked and melted wax leaked all over the table, and moments later we were thrown out. I clipped the end from my Monte (of which three or so inches remained) and put it in a tube to smoke at a later date.

Two months later that very same pyromaniac (he came from a good Christian family), got married. It was an afternoon reception, and so, at 7pm, filled to the brim with boyish glee and free champagne, my friend Andrew and I found ourselves out on the town and ready to celebrate. We headed, of course, to a strip club; the dirtiest, and more importantly, the cheapest strip club we could find, and I produced from my pocket the remains of my Montecristo No. 1 (aficionado hot tip, people: cigars should not be half smoked and then stored in a tube for two months). I can’t image how it tasted, but I loved it, and in we plunged, taking two seats, right up against the main stage. We were there for 45 minutes or so, and turned down all the girls who asked us if we wanted a private dance. Eventually one came up with a jug full of money and explained that they were having a lesbian show on the stage in 5 minutes, and requested that we contribute. Being a diplomat above all else, I gave her a token amount, $5, but Andrew, he waved her away. “No thank you”, he said. In increasingly forceful tones the girl explained that we were sitting right on the stage, and had been for some time, and that he really had to contribute some money or cede his seat. At this, Andrew defiantly withdrew a five cent coin from his pocket (the smallest unit of Australian currency) and tossed it contemptuously into the jug.

Suffice to say, we were thrown out shortly after. I don’t remember what happened to the cigar. I suppose I left it in the ashtray.

Two thirds in, this cigar is delightful, an aged, creamy elegance, with just a touch of spice. A little tar on the back palette is easily dissolved by the rum. I take it down till it burns my fingers, and it grows a little bitter, but not very, the age has taken away a lot of the tar. In the last few puffs something strange materialises… a tangy herb… cilantro, maybe? Perhaps the bite of a nasturtium? It’s interesting, but it lasts for only a moment. A wonderful, elegant cigar.

Better than a Monte 4.

Montecristo Dunhill Selección No. 1 on the Cuban Cigar Website.

Montecristo No. 4

Posted on January 22, 2013 by atgroom under Current Production, Montecristo

My years of involvement with the Cuban Cigar Website (the world’s best online Cuban Cigar encyclopaedia), my travels, and the generosity of my friends and benefactors, has given me a diverse and interesting collection of exotic cigars. They are singles in the main, many taken from commemorative humidors and the like, and at first I saved every one that came into my possession, either for my collection or perhaps to enhance some significant life event in the future. As the stack grew I began to wonder why. What was I saving them for? One can only have so many 50th birthdays and give birth to so many masculine children.

I have decided, therefore, to smoke them, and so they don’t burn entirely in vain, I’ll journal the process and publish the result. The cigars I will smoke here are rarities and exotics, things one only rarely sees reviewed, and while I don’t pretend to have the palate to offer any valid criticisms (and besides, what’s the point, as in the main they’re not things you can rush out and buy based on my recommendation), perhaps from time to time I might be able to offer a little insight.

All of which brings us to this, the first smoke of the journal, the Montecristo No. 4.

Alright, I concede, it’s not the most exotic of cigars. It’s not a Montecristo No. 4 from the 21^st Century Humidor (more on that later), or a Compay Segundo Monte 4 (more on that later), or some other strange beast, no, this is instead the humblest of creatures, purchased from a liquor store. I couldn’t see the dial on the hygrometer, but I’m fairly sure it would have read the same as the ambient humidity.

I light up the cigar, and immediately inhale the smoke into my nose far too closely and deeply, burning the inside of my nasal passage. When I’ve recovered I take a few puffs. The first notes are acrid and bitter. It’s too hot, too soon after lighting, and the cigar itself is a little dry.

For decades the Montecristo No. 4 has been the most popular cigar in the world (although I heard once that the Partagás Serie D. No. 4 was catching up), and this is how they are smoked, from liquor stores and head shops. No aficionado bullshit here, this is the everyman cigar, the absolute most common cigar experience, and the bar to which the lofty exotics to come shall be compared.

My first cigar in life was some three dollar Nicaraguan piece of shit that came in a plastic tube. I bought it for a buck’s night, and not having a cutter, I bit the end off with my teeth, removing about an inch of cigar in the process. Shards of tobacco came away from it whenever it touched my lips, and I found myself spitting after every puff, the flavour something akin to a rubber fire.

I don’t recall what I enjoyed about that experience, but I must have taken something from it, because a few months later I purchased a small plastic cutter and my second cigar in life, a Montecristo No. 4.

Oh what a difference, the flavours of Cuba, that delicious tang of finely toasted tobacco. Rich and spicy, bitter toward the end from the tar, but never that chemical rubber tang of an inferior smoke. There are echoes of that cigar in this one. There is certainly nothing unpleasant about it. The tobacco is slightly tannic, a little spice on the back pallet. Perhaps it’s all my talk of the everyman, but I feel that there’s a flavour of something rural that I just can’t quite put my finger on. It’s not the barnyard, or the earth, or the sweat of calloused hands, nor motor oil or sheep dip. Honestly, the more I try and pin it down the only thing I think I can taste is ketchup. Not sure where that’s coming from, but probably not the cigar or the glass of water that I’m pairing it with.

For years I kept a box of Montecristo No. 4 cigars in stock at all times, and presented them freely to anyone who was curious to try their first cigar. Once, in the early days of my habit I stumbled upon a website that seemed to offer prices well below those found in other online retailers. I bought a box, and as much as it hurt me to admit it at the time, I eventually had to face the fact that they were obviously fakes. Still, sunk costs are sunk costs, and so I mixed them one to two into my stock to hand out at parties. They were awful those fakes, real strips of tyre rubber, and I could tell more or less who had gotten what entirely by whether or not they ever asked for a cigar again.

More than halfway now and there’s a little tar, a little bitterness. A little nicotine too, no doubt. I include these photos to add some visual interest and because every cigar blog seems to do it, although I’m not entirely sure I see the point.

I remove the band, which comes away very easily. It’s embossed, which makes this cigar post-2006, although given its very dubious origins and storage history, I wouldn’t put a lot of stake in anything that can tell us. Here’s an aficionado tip: if you care about box codes, you shouldn’t be buying your cigars at liquor stores or petrol stations. Honestly though, this cigar has been pretty good. The burn has been dead even the whole way, no relights or touch-ups, and the draw is perfect, a good firm Cuban draw.

The bitter end; every puff leaves a tingle on my tongue and makes me salivate. I rinse and spit, but keep smoking. Perhaps it’s the nicotine, but while the end of a cigar like this is objectively unpleasant, I can’t help but love it. I find myself puffing deeper and more often at the end, making the cigar burn hotter and bitterer. I have a small head rush at the temples.

With a centimetre to go the cigar is burning both my fingers and lips, and shows no signs of extinguishing itself, so finally I make the call and toss it; it lands in a patch of wild mint that grows near the fence. Perhaps the mojitos of my future will take one some of the flavour of this Monte 4. I rinse the last puff from my mouth with the water, and the bitterness removed I am left with the aftertaste that follows the last swig of strong coffee.

I don’t have an especially well developed pallet, and honestly, I like everything, and so I don’t feel qualified to rate cigars at 94 out of 100 or anything like that. It is therefore my vague intention to rank all future cigars against this one (a device that I image will be discarded, perhaps as early as the next entry). One would hope, given the exotics that I plan to compare it with, that this cigar will remain perpetually at the bottom of the list, however, at this moment I feel like the bar has been set fairly high. A thoroughly enjoyable experience. I see why these are so popular.

Montecristo No. 4 on the Cuban Cigar Website