Rocky Patel Winter Series 2009

Origin : Honduras
Format : Robusto
Size : 5 x 50
Wrapper : Pennsylvania Maduro
Binder : Ecuadorian
Filler : Nicaraguan
Strength : Full Bodied
Hand-Made
Price : ~$6-7 each

This is a guest cigar review by Austin Fruechting, a cigar aficionado and entrepreneur. Feel free to follow him on Twitter!

My name is Austin Fruechting, and I have been a cigar enthusiast for the past few years. I began smoking a pipe seven years ago and dabbled in cigars. After a couple years, cigars became my dominant preference. I believe there is nothing better than to socialize around, or relax with, a cigar, especially if paired with a good scotch or wine. Some of my favorite cigars include most of the Tatuaje line, Padron 64’s & 26’s, and Oliva V’s & Cains. I am an entrepreneur and my passion for business and for cigars has lead to the opening of my own cigar and wine bar, The 7th Street Reserve, which is scheduled to be open in the summer of 2010.

This is cigar is part of Rocky Patel’s limited release series and was gifted to me by a great BOTL.

Construction

This is an attractive cigar with very well designed bands that compliment the dark Pennsylvania maduro wrapper quite nicely. It is fairly toothy and has just a couple veins. Although it doesn’t have any soft spots, it does seem to get progressively tighter from the foot to the head.

Pre-light

The wrapper and foot give off a very pleasant sweet tobacco scent with hints of cocoa. The cold draw is fairly tight, but not too tight as to raise any concerns for the smoke. The cold draw gives a very tantalizing sweet spiciness that stays on the tongue and lips as well as bits of leather and wood

The Smoke

It starts off very strong, definitely stronger and fuller bodied than Rocky Patel’s average cigars. The taste is a very complex spice, but not harsh. The best way I can describe the complexity is in a comparison to peppernuts. There are just so many different spice flavors coming across that you just can’t pick out one or two. The smoke carries some cocoa aromas. About one half inch in the cigar begins to mellow out some and some woody notes come in briefly and then fades out. Shortly after that the cocoa that has been evident in the scent emerges in the taste. The burn line in the first half is wavy, but not too bad. It burns with a blue smoke and produces a fair amount of light grey smoke. The ash is just plain ugly, but holds well.

Halfway through the cigar the woody notes come back in with hints of leather. This combines to create the dominant flavor of coffee at this point. The cigar sticks with these flavors for a while, but transitions once more before the finish. The cigar finishes with a harsher spiciness, black pepper, and a hint of chocolate. The taste makes me think of burnt coffee that’s been sitting on the warmer for days. The burn line in the second half was not good. It required a couple touchups. Once it varied more than a half inch without showing any signs of correcting itself before I touched it up.

Final Thoughts

I very much enjoyed this cigar and it was definitely one of my favorites from Rocky Patel. The total smoke time on this cigar was 2 hours and 10 minutes. It is a very full bodied cigar with a decent amount of complexity. Its draw was a little too stiff, but I don’t want to knock the cigar for this because the first one I had did not have this issue. So as I have only had two, I don’t know if this one was an anomaly or if others have that issue as well. The finish was disappointing. This cigar was on pace to be a great cigar, but the burn issues and the burnt coffee taste at the end diminished the overall experience quite a bit.

If I found them in a store, I would definitely pick a few, especially since they’re only $6-7 and of limited quantities, but wouldn’t do a box.