четверг, 28 июня 2007 г.

Cigars

Sabor Cubano Petite Torpedo

Sabor Cubano is a product of La Tradicion Cubana, owned and operated by Luis Sanchez in Miami's Little Havana. Sanchez comes from a family with roots in Cuba's pre-revolutionary cigar industry, and his tabaqueros are veterans of Havana's galeras, some with more than twenty years experience rolling cigars in the traditional Cuban fashion.

La Tradicion Cubana got its start in 1995 using blends that were inspired by Sanchez's grandfather. Sabor Cubano - La Tradicion's maduro entry - was first released in 1997.

Sanchez is obviously very proud of the maduro used in this blend, repeatedly noting (on La Tradicion's website and elsewhere) that the wrapper is processed in an entirely natural fashion. (Some of the maduro cigars I've smoked recently have made me wonder, like Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel, "How much more black could it be? And the answer is: None. None more black." And while these cigars haven't stained my lips or fingers, they have raised some suspicions: but I digress.)

The maduro wrapper employed here is from Mexico's San Andres valley. By the time it is used in the Sabor Cubano it has been aged for five years, and is accompanied by a binder from Ecuador, and filler from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. La Tradicion makes some huge cigars; the standard La Tradicion line includes a gigantic pyramid that comes in at 8 1/2 inches by 80 ring gauge, and they are also the makers of The Big One, perhaps the largest cigar made for non-Guinness breaking purposes. It measures 12 inches long by a whopping 192 ring gauge. Wow.

At only 5 inches by 54, the Petite Torpedo is a veritable dwarf by comparison. The wrapper is not quite oscuro, but most definitely maduro. It has a rough texture, glistens with oil, and prelight the scent is bright and grassy. It smells very much like the few fresh rolled cigars I've had the pleasure to smoke. After snipping the tip I found a perfect prelight draw and a touch of pepper on the tongue.

This little guy smokes like a champ. Trails of white smoke wisp from the head of the cigar after every puff. I love that. It doesn't burn perfectly evenly (what maduro does?) but otherwise I'm very impressed with the construction here. It starts up with a peppery flavor that has a slight bite to it without being truly sharp. The texture of the smoke is smooth and rich, and the aroma is sweet with woody spices.

I'd characterize this cigar as medium in both body and strength. It's full flavored, but with a short finish and little aftertaste. What really sends me over the edge is the aroma from the wrapper - it's far more complex than the last two double maduros I've reviewed. There's a bit of char towards the end of the cigar, which is what typified the MX2 and the SLR Serie G, but the Sabor Cubano offers the sweetness of maduro without that carbonized flavor overtaking the softer notes. It's a more balanced aroma, and in my opinion, a superior smoke overall.

La Tradicion is a boutique brand, but their prices don't reflect that. Boxes of the Petite Torpedo go for around 75 dollars - well worth it; in fact I'd call that a steal. With a recent expansion to the Dominican Republic the company may be looking to go big, which puts fear into my stogie loving soul. I have a few other blends from the Calle Ocho shop to try, and if they're as good as the Sabor Cubano I'm going to be eying a certain closet in my house for its humidor potential.

Partagas Black Maximo

It seems fitting to follow up a review of Macanudo with a review of a Partagas cigar. In a lot of ways Partagas is the rougher tougher sibling of Macanudo, but they share a common heritage. Cuban master Ramon Cifuentes was the man who developed both of these cigars, though he will always be remembered for Partagas in particular because he and his family before him owned the Partagas factory in Havana before the revolution.

Fidel Castro offered Cifuentes command of Cuba's nationalized cigar industry in 1961, but for obvious reasons he refused. (Let's see here. You take away my property and my livelihood and then you offer me a job managing it for your government? No thanks.) Instead Cifuentes went to Connecticut where he was soon working for Edgar Cullman and General Cigar. Cullman put him in charge of General's operations in Jamaica, where Cifuentes would raise Partagas again, like a phoenix from the ashes, in a new Jamaican form.

In the mid-1970's General released its Cifuentes engineered Partagas with a Cameroon wrapper. But the extra load placed on the Jamaican factory where Macanudos were also being produced resulted in friction with the labor unions there and a move to the Dominican Republic was soon in the works. Today Partagas (as well as Macanudo) in all their various forms are manufactured by hand in the Dominican Republic.

The Partagas Black Label is a relative newcomer to the General family of cigars. Released in 2001 in response to the demand for full-bodied cigars, Cifuentes protege Daniel Nunez blended this cigar to appeal to fans of maduro and spice. The highlight of the cigar is a jet black sun grown medio tiempo Connecticut broadleaf wrapper. Medio tiempo leaves are the highest leaves on the tobacco plant, the last ones to be harvested. Medio tiempo broadleaf is tough stuff, grown to withstand the rigorous fermentation process that renders it this rich dark shade.

Nunez uses a specially sun grown Dominican binder called "La Vega Especial" and the filler is a blend of Nicaraguan ligero and Dominican piloto cubano. Interestingly, La Vega Especial is used as the wrapper on General's version of Ramon Allones cigars.

Unlike Macanudo, which is known for its rock solid consistency, I have found the flavor of Partagas Black to vary depending on the size and the age. Most bold and spicy cigars will mellow with age, and I have found that to be the case with this one as well. The pair of Maximos I smoked for this review had been aged for about a year, and were several degrees less spicy than other Partagas Blacks I've smoked in the past. Whether this is because of the size or the age, I'm not sure, but I was surprised nevertheless.

With Nicaraguan ligero and piloto cubano at the core and a medio tiempo wrapper, this should be a powerful smoke. And while they were tasty, full of sweet char and a pleasant woody base flavor, I didn't find them all that spicy. A little chocolatey, a little coffee beaney, but not spicy. Actually, they were quite smooth, and to be honest I preferred these Maximos to my previous experiences with the Black Label. A couple years ago I tried the Black Label and found the pepper overwhelming and way out of balance with the rest of the blend. Today these moderately aged Maximos are powerful enough to keep my palate interested, but not so much that I can't kick back and savor the other flavors and characteristics of the cigar. Additionally, the rich maduro taste is helped out by a leisurely and even burn.

I'm going to have to pick up a few more of these from the B&M in different sizes just to satisfy my curiosity. They're reasonably priced and despite the varying levels of spice and intensity they've all been fine smokes. Maximos come in aluminum tubes, so maybe that has something to do with the relative mildness of the cigar. Who knows? I guess I will just have to commit a few more Black Labels to the fire in the name of research to find out.

Macanudo Cafe Lords

Don't laugh. It's only a Macanudo, the best selling cigar in America. The reasons for this are many - tradition, consistency, perhaps the mediocrity of the common denominator - but the fact of the matter is that if cigars were running for office, you'd be looking at the President. So I thought I better check it out.

Macanudo has a Jamaican history with British roots that today is a paragon of mild Dominican cigars. The first Macanudo was actually a Cuban Punch that was made in Jamaica. During World War II the British wanted to keep as much of their hard currency contained within British holdings as they could, so trading with Cuba was out. As a British possession Jamaica was open for trade, so some Cuban cigar makers went to Jamaica where they made cigars using Havana leaf for the English market. And so the first Macanudo was born as a frontmark for a Fernando Palacios Punch.

Its English roots are also born out in the names for the various sizes of Macanudo - Duke of Wellington, Prince of Wales, Tudor, Hyde Park, etc. In fact it was the Duke of Windsor who is credited with bringing the term "macanudo" back with him from a polo trip to Argentina. The word is Argentine slang for "excellent" or "cool." It's a somewhat dated term, but it's still in use, and from what I can tell it is generally used to describe people, so I think "cool" is probably the closest translation for American English. For the past few years "Macanudo" has also been a very popular comic strip by the cartoonist Liniers that appears in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion.

"Clear Havanas" made with Cuban tobacco already in the U.S. at the time of the embargo were available for sale throughout the early 60's, but by the late 60's and 70's it was getting increasingly more difficult to find premium cigars in the U.S. The few that were around were Jamaican, like Royal Jamaica and Montecruz. So around this time, General Cigar bought the Temple Hall factory in Jamaica and with it the U.S. rights to the Macanudo name. Part of the reason for the success of Macanudo is that they were one of the few premiums in production at the time - they built on the name by producing quality premium smokes and became a standard for the industry as one of the few players in the premium game.

In 1971 General introduced Macaduno to the American public, and for years it held its own as a classic Jamaican cigar. As time went on, however, the Dominican cigar industry began to lure companies away from Jamaica with its quality tobacco and lower cost of labor. Gradually the production of Macanudos was transitioned to the Dominican Republic, with only a few larger sizes being made in Jamaica as recently as 2000, when Jamaican production stopped. Today it is an entirely Dominican made cigar.

The wrapper is key to a Mac: it's a classic Connecticut Shade, but it undergoes a journey before it crowns the cigar. After harvesting in Connecticut the wrapper leaf is fermented over the winter. Then it is packed up and shipped to the DR where is is fermented a little more. Then it goes back to Connecticut again, for a second "winter sweat." Finally, it returns to the DR where it is unpacked and mixed with wrapper from the previous year's harvest and fermented one last time. This must be at least partially the reason for Macanudo's legendary consistency, as well as the fine taste and aroma of the final product.

At long last the cigar is finally rolled, using a binder from Mexico's San Andres valley and filler from the DR (piloto cubano) and Mexico. There are over twenty sizes to choose from. This is the 4 3/4 x 49 robusto sized Lords.

I have to say this is a very nice mild cigar. Like many mild-bodied cigars with Connecticut wrappers, I usually admire the aroma more than anything else, and that is the case here as well. It starts up with a toasty, nutty flavor and a beautifully sweet aroma. The flavor is somewhat grassy at times, a little papery at others, but never objectionable. It's a very clean smoking cigar with very little aftertaste (though some would say, with very little taste either.) The construction was spot on - perfect draw, even burn, the works. It burned a little hot after the mid-point, but I can't rule out operator error there. I tend to hotbox mild cigars.

I guess there really isn't too much in a Mac to hold my interest over the long term, but I can see keeping a few of these on hand to give to new smokers. It's a quality mild-bodied cigar that won't send neophytes scurrying for the restroom, and at around 3 or 4 bucks a stick they're reasonably priced as well.

And now that I've done my duty as a good cigar citizen and "fair and balanced" stogie analyst, I believe it's time for something a little stronger. Lemme see here: that mean looking Partagas Black has my attention. It may get more of my attention here shortly:

Romeo y Julieta Aniversario Robusto

It seems like only yesterday that Inocencio Alvarez and Mannin Garcia set up shop and started rolling cigars named for a romantic tragedy called Romeo and Juliet. But in fact it has been about 132 years now. My how time flies.

An interesting bit of trivia about the Romeo y Julieta brand is that when the brand was purchased by Jose Fernandez Rodriguez around the turn of the century one of the marketing tricks that he used was to offer personalized bands to his regular clients, creating over 20,000 "vitolas."

So with 20,000 different brands it seems fitting that Altadis USA would release another one for the 130th Anniversary of the label. Of course, the Romeo y Julieta Aniversario cigar is more than just a different band on the same old Romeo; it's an entirely new blend.

The Aniversario is available in the five standard sizes, but here we have the 5 x 52 robusto. This line features an attractive and tasty Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, a Connecticut binder, and filler from the DR, Nicaragua and Peru.

It's a handsome and well-made stick. The dark blond wrapper is smooth and the cap is carefully applied. A few veins from the binder are outlined throughout the wrapper, but they aren't distracting. The roll is rock solid, and it feels fairly heavy. The overall impression is one of weight, gravity, and seriousness.

Despite inital impressions, this turns out to be a darling of a cigar. It opens up with a little pepper and a sweet aroma. The smoke texture is full and creamy smooth. After about an inch the base flavor is revealed as cedar, while gentle spice pours from the wrapper. By the mid point there are still some peppery overtones on the tongue, but they are fairly muted and blend well with the woody aspect of the smoke.

The ash is solid but the outer layer flakes a little: not enough to become a nuisance, just enough to look a bit messy. The burn is straight and the draw is firm. Loosen up the draw just a wee bit and I'd call this perfect construction.

The Romeo y Julieta Aniversario is a really nice medium-bodied cigar, clean tasting and sophisticated. It's a great example of a cigar that is complex in terms of flavor, but not complicated.

There's enough here to satisfy the veteran smoker and yet it won't challenge a neophyte. The creamy texture and spicy overtones really won me over. On top of everything else, this is a great example of Ecuadorian wrapper, and the blend that plays behind it is right on the mark. The robustos run around 5 or 6 bucks a pop- a very reasonable asking price for a cigar of this quality.

CAO MX2 Robusto

It's been a while since I picked up a CAO MX2, but I've been in a maduro state of mind lately so I decided to fire one up and see if they're as good as I remember. The SLR Serie G was a good cigar, but I remembered the MX2 as having a little more complexity. I'm comparing the two because they're both "double maduros," meaning they employ maduro leaves for both binder and wrapper.

It's no surprise that the MX2 is more complex simply because there are no less than six different types of leaf used. The wrapper leaf is the traditional maduro leaf - Connecticut broadleaf. But beneath this is a binder from the Mata Fina region of Brazil. CAO has not been afraid to use Brazilian leaf, having used it with the Brazilia (which has a delicious Arapiraca wrapper) and the Sopranos edition (a more delicate Mata Fina.) For whatever reason, Brazil seems to get a bad rap in the cigar department even though it is South America's top producer of black tobacco. Maybe the trick is in the blend - here CAO blends the maduro binder and wrapper with leaves from Nicaragua, Honduras, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. Tim Ozgener says there is Italian and Mexican leaf in the blend as well. That's one smokin' buffet!

CAO's MX2 was introduced in 2003 and according to Ozgener it was the first "double maduro" cigar. Previously this term referred to extra-dark maduro colored wrappers (aka oscuro) but the MX2 was the first to use two maduro leaves in the blend. Sometimes "maduro" is used as a color designation but here it refers to the result of a lengthy fermentation process that goes into making a true maduro leaf.

The MX2 is a rough looking cigar: the wrapper is thick and presents an imposingly dark exterior. There was a time when maduro cigars were primarily made from corona or medio tiempo leaves - the strongest, thickest leaves at the top of the plant. The result was a very strong cigar. This isn't so true any more- there are plenty of mild to medium bodied maduros that use less potent wrappers - but the reputation lives on. But if I were inclined to believe that darker is stronger I would be wary of this cigar.

One of the characteristics of good binder leaf is that it promotes an even burn, so using a thick, oily, heavily fermented maduro binder is a challenge. To the blender's credit, the MX2 burns beautifully. I had no problem with lighting this stout robusto and it burned perfectly evenly with a very comfortable draw.

It starts up with a touch of spice and some woody flavors. The smoldering layers of maduro produce a sweet and pleasing aroma. As the cigar builds a solid ash the flavor turns from wood to earth but becomes gradually ashy. I enjoyed the fragrance of this smoke more than the flavor, which starts out with some promise but eventually concentrates on a sweet char that tastes kind of like burnt barbeque. It's something I'd rather smell than taste, to be honest.

What I love about this cigar is the aroma and the fine construction, and now that I think about it that's what I remember liking about the last one I smoked a few months ago. Unfortunately, I'm not really sold on the flavor. It's also a very dry, mouth-puckering cigar that doesn't inspire much salivation. Make sure you have a drink handy if you're going to try one of these.

As for me, the taste buds have voted. All 10,000 of them. The MX2 is a fine cigar, but when I want a double maduro I'll stick with my trusty Cusano 18 Paired Maduro.

Saint Luis Rey Serie G Rothchilde

The Saint Luis Rey Serie G is a new double maduro cigar from Altadis USA. Traditionally the serie associated with this frontmark is the "Serie A," the classic Cuban cigar, so maybe borrowing the theme and adding another serie to the line is a good marketing play. Or maybe it's just plain larceny. After all, what Cuban brands don't have non-Cuban versions available for legal U.S. consumption? Vegueros? Guantanamera? It's safe to say that at least the big names are spoken for - sometimes more than once - in the strange world of the cigar trade.

I always thought that the name of the brand came from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the classic novel about the collapse of a Peruvian bridge and the Francisan missionary who tries to make sense of the senseless suffering that results. Now why one would name a cigar after a book as ponderous as this, I don't know, but that's why I was pleased to hear an alternative story: the original vegas that produced the tobacco for Saint Luis Rey were located in San Luis, in Cuba's Vuelta Abajo, and somehow Rey got tacked on at the end as an honorific.

The whole "double maduro" thing has become a bit of a trend as well. CAO has done it with the MX2 (a cigar I plan to review soon as a companion piece to this one) and Cusano's paired maduro is a very fine smoke as well. So I was looking forward to trying Altadis's crack at the formula.

The Serie G cigars are all large ring gauge smokes - the Rothchilde is a large robusto at 5 x 56; the Churchill measures 7 x 58; and the "No. 6? is 6 x 60. So I guess we have a combination of trends here - double maduro, plus super huge ring gauge. The wrapper and binder are both Connecticut broadleaf maduro, and the filler is Nicaraguan.

This SLR double maduro is a solid log of a cigar with a dry dark maduro wrapper. The pre-light scent is earthy and redolent of good old fermented tobacco leaf. Due to the large ring gauge it takes some time to set this one alight, but once going it burns with a slow and even determination.

Given all this, it's somewhat surprising that the volume of smoke produced isn't larger - the smoke seems a little thin bodied to start out with, but it gradually grows to about medium at smoke's end. What it lacks in body it makes up for in smoothness though. Neither bark nor bite come anywhere near this cigar.

The flavor is woody and when combined with the sweet char coming from the wrapper the overall impression I get is that it's like being next to a warm camp fire on a crisp autumn night. It's not a complex, symphonic kind of cigar, but the simple tune it carries is honest and sincere. The last third adds a heartier earthy component to the mix until it slowly declines and signals its demise with a final dash of tar. (I might have smoked it a little too far at that point, but it's hard to know when to stop when you're enjoying a good cigar.)

If you're a maduro guy you'll definitely want to sample a couple of Serie Gs, and if you're new to maduros I think this one is a great example of the breed. Just keep in mind that it's not a powerhouse cigar, and there isn't a whole lot of complexity. It's just a good old cigar.

(Afterthought: I smoked one of these in the garage last night and didn't air the place out as well as I could have when I was done. When I went to get in the truck to go to work this morning it smelled great in there! It reminded me of what my grandfather's tool shed smelled like when I was a kid: old leather and pine tar and gunpowder. What a smell. My wife doesn't agree, but that's why guys like us spend so much time in places like tool sheds and garages smoking stinky cigars. Long live the stink!)

Padilla Hybrid Robusto

One of the interesting things about tobacco, aside from the pleasure we derive from its taste and aroma as it burns, is its use in genetic engineering. Nicotiana Tabacum is extremely susceptible to hybridization, to the point that tobacco farmers have to constantly defend against cross-pollination in order to keep their strains pure. It has been said that the reason why Cuban tobacco no longer tastes the same as it did years ago is because of uncontrolled hybridization. I'm not sure how true that is, but that's the line you'll hear from the folks in Honduras or Nicaragua who claim their corojo is from the "original" Cuban seed.

Tobacco is an often used plant in biological experiments, because it has many advantages: It is a self-pollinating crop with up to one million seeds per plant, it can produce a large amount of biomass (more than 40 t fresh leaf weight/acre), it has no known wild or cultivated relatives in North America and it is easy to enhance through genetic engineering. By harvesting tobacco leaves before the onset of flowering, the possible flow of genetic material via pollen or seed is eliminated and the contamination of food crops is prevented. In addition, there exists a large-scale processing infrastructure.

Bioengineering is somewhat controversial, and sometimes just plain weird. How about a luminescent tobacco plant?

Or tobacco crossed with carrot? Cigarrot, anyone?

The wrapper for the Padilla Hybrid is a carefully engineered cross between "cuban seed" tobacco and Connecticut Shade, but more importantly (I think) is the fact that it's grown in Ecuador. I'm sure that has as much to with the fine taste of this cigar as the genetic blend does.Out of the box the first thing you'll notice is a very smooth shade wrapper of uniform color with small discreet veins. The cigar is a little bit dry, but rolled well with a Cuban style flat head.

The construction here is right on the money. It lights up easily and burns absolutely even with an effortless draw. The aroma from the wrapper is most typically Connecticut shade - creamy, buttery, like Chardonnay. But it's spiked with some more unusual, but still gentle spices. A touch of cinnamon or nutmeg maybe with a bready overtone. The flavor is nutty but otherwise unremarkable. The aroma is the focal point here.

It starts to burn a little hot at the middle of the cigar and by the two-thirds point the flavor is getting a little ashy. It's a mild cigar in terms of strength, but about medium in smoke density and mouthfeel.

The flavor and aroma of this cigar reminds me a little of what happens when you blend two single-origin coffees, or two single malt whiskies. While the high points of both elements are present and complementary, if you're a diehard fan of one or the other the blend might come off as an adulteration.

But I think Padilla has something here. Overall I think this is a great blend of aromas and definitely worth the very reasonable price. If you like Connecticut shade and cigars on the mild to medium side, definitely give this Hybrid a shot.

Do it soon though because they're going out of production. If you've tried one and you like it, be sure to pick up a few boxes now while they're still available. At 60 dollars for a box of 20 this is a no brainer.

Heberto Padilla

I've always liked the Padilla cigar band. It's a little bit too big for a robusto sized cigar, but it's bold without being overbearing - it's an unusual and striking shape, with a blunted peak at the top. It always intrigued me, but I never really recognized it for what it was until I read an interview with Ernesto Padilla where he said that the crown of the image represents the nib of a fountain pen, in tribute to his father, the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla.

I do have a few interests outside of cigars (believe it or not) and one of them is literature. I hadn't heard of Heberto Padilla, so I checked out a book of his poems from the library. His poems are like a great cigar: balanced, full flavored, and serene. He was a true artist, and instead of a cigar review I'd like to offer a brief biography and a selection from his work with the sincere hope that you will look into it as well.

Remembered primarily as a man of letters, Heberto Padilla was initially a supporter but later an outspoken critic of the Castro regime. He was born in the province of Pinar del Rio in 1932, and his first book of poems was published at the age of 16. Soon after that he went to the United States and spent most of the 1950's here. In 1959 he returned to Cuba with great optimism for the future when the dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown. He took an active role in the new revolutionary government, helping to edit the literary weekly Lunes de Revolucion with his friend, the great Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante (who incidently wrote my favorite book about cigars, Holy Smoke.) Padilla also reported for the government press agency from Eastern Europe and Moscow, places that would give him further insight into the threats that communism might one day pose for Cuban artists.

Gradually the political climate in Cuba began to chill and Padilla saw the threats of oppression take hold - the govemment discontinued Lunes de Revolucion, refused to publish Cabrera Infante's work, and in 1968 Padilla himself became the focus of controversy.

Padilla's book of poems, Fuera del Juego (Out of the Game) was entered into the Julian del Casal poetry competition, a contest sponsored by the Cuban Union of Writers and Artists. Despite state pressure on the judges to deny him the award, the judges agreed: even with its open criticism of the Cuban government's treatment of artists and writers, Fuera del Juego was the superior entry. It was published, but under a shroud of suspicion cast by a preface that warned readers about its dangerously counter-revolutionary tendencies.

Padilla continued to write and air his controversial views despite the climate of hostility gathering around him. In 1971 he read from a collection of poems brazenly called Provocaciones, which led the regime to finally exercise its despotic power over the poet: he was arrested, jailed, and brutalized; his wife, the writer Belkis Cuza Male , was arrested without cause, and finally he was forced to appear before the Writer's Union to confess his work as counter-revolutionary. He was also made to denounce other writers, including his wife, as traitors to the revolution.

After a sentence of forced labor, Padilla was allowed to work as a translator while under government watch. He was not allowed to publish, but he managed somehow to get some of his poems to the United States where they were published in the New York Review of Books and later collected in the book Legacies.

In 1980, Castro unexpectedly allowed a number of dissidents to leave Cuba, and with the support of Senator Ted Kennedy and the author Bernard Malamud, Heberto Padilla was able to emigrate to the U.S.

General, there's a battle between your orders and my songs. It goes on all the time: night, day. It knows neither tiredness or sleep- a battle that has gone on for many years, so many that my eyes have never seen a sunrise in which you, your orders, your arms, your trenches did not figure. A rich battle in which, aesthetically speaking, my rags and your uniform face off. A theatrical battle- it only lacks dazzling stage sets where comedians might come on from anywhere raising a rumpus as they do in carnivals, each one showing off his loyalty and valor. General, I can't destroy your fleets or your tanks and I don't know how long this war will last but every night one of your orders dies without being followed, and, undefeated, one of my songs survives. -Heberto Padilla From Legacies (translated by Alastair Reid and Andrew Hurley)

Carlos Torano Noventa "La Esperanza"

When Daniel Ortega was elected President of Nicaragua last November, cigar makers and aficionados everywhere had to step back a moment and remember what happened the last time Ortega's party was in power. When the Sandinistas assumed control in 1979, tobacco farms and factories were seized by the government and the Nicaraguan cigar industry was essentially decimated; cigar manufacturers took what tobacco they could and ran for the border to Honduras or other more hospitable countries. Tobacco production in Nicaragua was eventually retooled for cigarettes to be marketed in Eastern Bloc countries.

So when Ortega came back like a bad penny last November, Philip Wynne of Felipe Gregorio cigars did what seems the sensible thing - he got out of Dodge and moved his operation to the Dominican Republic. But the Torano family evidently has no fear. Instead of leaving, or even hedging his bets, Charlie Torano decided that they would go ahead with plans for a new facility four times the size of their current one in Esteli. The new factory will be set on a 30 acre campus complete with areas for social events and tourist attractions; in fact, Torano says they want the new factory to have the air of a winery where people can relax and learn about the history of Torano's four generations in the business.

And if this weren't enough, there's the name of the new facility: Esperanza, which was the name of the Torano farm in Cuba. It was confiscated by the Castro government in 1959 and led to Carlos Torano's famous escape to the Dominican Republic with the seeds that would become known as piloto cubano, one of the great stories and historical milestones in the history of cigars. Esperanza is Spanish for hope, and hope is certainly alive in Nicaragua.

To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the company (dated from 1916, the year Santiago Torano emigrated from Spain to Cuba,) Torano Cigars released the Noventa. After five years of aging, the final product was released late last year. Noventa is a Nicaraguan puro utilizing a nearly flawless habano wrapper, a habano binder, and a complex blend of fillers from Jalapa, Esteli, Condega and Pueblo Nuevo. The names of the three available sizes are reflections of Torano's heritage: Santiago, a 5 x 50 robusto named after the patriarch of the family; La Esperanza, a 6 x 52 toro named for the original farm in Cuba; and Latin, a 6 1/4 x 54 torpedo named after the current business moniker.

The toro size Esperanza has a smooth shade-grown appearance with a slight sheen to the wrapper. A couple of discreet veins pop up toward the head from under the band. The foot reveals some dark leaf, and the pre-light scent is mildly spicy. The cap is smooth and shiny and applied in the flat Cuban style. A very attractive cigar.

I was expecting a bold spicy start typical of Nicaraguan puros, but what I got instead was a very smooth, nearly creamy smoke. The base flavor here is wood with a touch of cedary spice. The draw is perfect, and the burn is as close to razor straight as I've had in a long while. The flavors and aroma remind me of a Padron 1964 natural, though perhaps not as bold. The same smoothness and woody profile is there though, with maybe a little more sweetness on the nose.

There wasn't too much development here, just a very relaxing spritely cigar with gentle spices jumping all over the palate - cedar, juniper, maybe a little vanilla bean. Never overbearing, perfectly balanced, and smooth as silk. I'd rate it a solid medium in body, though the smoke texture itself is a little bit heavier than that. It's not heavy the way highly spiced Nicaraguan cigars can be - it's substantial, but refined. I enjoyed this smoke for a good hour and fifteen minutes, pausing once to remove the band and wonder where the time went.

The Noventa is a great cigar worthy of the Anniversary status conferred upon it. The bad news is that it's very expensive. At around 11 USD this isn't going to be an everyday smoke for most people, and it probably shouldn't be. Since Noventa means 90, I would prescribe one every 90 days. Even if you need to scrimp a little the rest of the week - have a Mayorga or a Maria Mancini instead of that Ashton -I think it's worth the sacrifice.

Dominican Colors and Swirls

I was browsing through the Daedalus Books catalog the other day and found a couple of titles that I've had my eye on for some time. (Daedalus is a purveyor of fine but commercially neglected books, also known as "remainders.") In the catalog I also saw this venerable looking fellow with the stogie clamped in his craw and thought maybe, just maybe, this book would have some interesting cigar lore for me to ponder. It was only $4.98 so I threw it in the basket.

The copyright date is 2003 by Parkstone Books in New York. The author is Jean-Pierre Alaux, and though there is no biographical information about him I would guess he is French. The text has been translated into English by Arthur Borges, and the book is bound in Slovenia. This seems to be a truly international effort. Unfortunately the text suffers somewhat from an unwieldy translation, resulting in things like, " For a firsthand experience of the sensitive gestures that go into the manufacture of a puro:" and "Before being commercialised, each cigar undergoes a combustibility test:" Pre-smoked stogie, anyone? They've been thoroughly tested, I can assure you.

The highlight of this thin volume is the photography. The first half of the book focuses on the Dominican cigar industry, and then it moves on to more general cultural topics. The cigar-related content here is pretty basic, centering on Tabacalera de Garcia and Altadis. A few words from Jose Seijas and short two-sentence profiles of four cigars - Don Diego Belicosos, Davidoff Double R, Santa Damiana "Rothschild Churchill" (??) and Pleiades Orion - completes the section on cigars.

The landscape photography is quite nice, and the detail in the pictures of the galeras is worth the bargain price. (My pictures of the pictures don't really do them justice.) The book is quite short at only 96 pages. It's really more of a novelty item than a serious look at the island or the cigars made there, but not a bad impulse buy for 5 simoleons.

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