Cigar Library
Cigar ArticlesAuthor: Inspector X
Cigars and alcohol. Two luxury products that go hand in hand, and sometimes even meet on business level. Aging tobacco in whisky, rum, or cognac barrels is a practice several brands do to achieve extra flavour to the wrapper for certain lines. The famous bourbon brand Maker’s Mark has their own cigar, sold in tubes with the signature wax coating. Drew Estate works with Pappy van Winkle and used to make Kahlua cigars. Mombacho used to have the Diplomatico series. General Cigars works with Sazerac, which resulted in Fireball cigars, Weller by Cohiba and collaborations with Buffalo Trace. And there is the Diesel Whisky Row, a collaboration with Rabbit Hole Distilleries. Fratello Cigars also sells craft beer. Most famous are probably the Cuban collaboration between Martell Cognac and Cohiba. Dominique London, the European retailer with more than 20 shops in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Canary Islands takes it one step further. They bought a distillery in Wales and produce whisky, gin, rum, vodka and liquors.
Flor de Caña 18
Flor de Caña gets its name from the sugarcane flower. It is the most famous rum from Nicaragua with roots going back to 1890. Oliva’s budget line, Flor de Oliva, uses the same font on the artwork as Flor de Caña. Flor de Caña rum is distilled five times during its production. Each rum is aged in a charred oak barrel having previously been used to mature bourbon whiskey, and is also created to comply with kosher standards. The aged rums come in statements of 12, 18 and 25 and I happened to have a bottle of the Flor de Caña 18 in my possession.
Neat
The nose is buttery, clean, crisp and spiced. There is a hint of citrus without too much ethanol. The beautiful golden coloured spirit is rich in flavour. Spice, toffee sweetness, oak, spice and cocoa. I bet this will be great in a Rum Old Fashioned with cocoa bitters. This is a very nice sipping rum with a long finish. The finish contains vanilla, spice and nuts. This with an Oliva Masterblend 3 would be divine.
Miami Vice 1.0
The Miami Vice is basically two cocktails combined in one. A strawberry daiquiri and a Piña Colada. The only places where this cocktail was popular was in beach bars and in nightclubs in the 1980s and 1990s. If you drink from the bottom, you taste the strawberry daiquiri, the top is piña colada, but you can also mix and get the combination. On the nose I get some coconut from the cream of coconut and the strawberry that I used as a garnish.
The sweet and sour flavour of the strawberry mixes well with the pineapple. The toffee sweetness of the rum plays a part in the background, as well as the lime. But the cream of coconut brings the tropical flavours in this cocktail with a nice and creamy texture. And this makes it both easy and hard to pair with a cigar. I mean, the cigar needs to be able to stand up to the acidity, but the sweetness and creaminess make it easy to pair with a lot of flavours. I would go for a nice medium bodied cigar, something like the West Tampa White or the Casdagli Daughters of the Wind. Most Cuban cigars will work well with this cocktail too. This might be the perfect summertime cocktail for a cigar pairing.
And now for the Miami Vice 1.0 recipe
2 x 1 ounce or 30ml of Rum
1 cup of chopped Strawberries
1 ounce or 30ml of lime juice, freshly squeezed
½ ounce or 15ml of simple syrup
2 ounces or 60ml of Cream of coconut
2 ounces of 60ml of pineapple juice
Garnish: pineapple slice
In a blender, add 1 ounce of the rum, strawberries, lime juice, simple syrup and 1 cup crushed ice and blend until smooth Pour into a hurricane glass and set in the freezer. Wash and dry the blender thoroughly. In the clean blender jar, add the remaining 1 ounce of rum, cream of coconut, pineapple juice and 1 cup crushed ice and blend until smooth. Pour into the hurricane glass that already contains the Strawberry Daiquiri, creating a layered effect. Garnish with a pineapple slice.
Miami Vice 2.0
Steve the Bartender, one of my favourite YouTube bartenders made a version 2.0 of this cocktail, which he got from a Miami bar called Broken Shaker. The nose it neutral due to the amount of ice. Before mixing, the bottom part is just pure strawberry puree, sweet with a little acidity. The upper part is creamy, sweet with coconut and a little lime, all with a pineapple flavour. The bite of the white rum, and the toffee from the Flor de Caña 18 combine well with the other ingredient. Once mixed, the thickness and the creaminess remind me of a milkshake, but a spiked milkshake and better than the strawberry milkshakes at McDonalds. This will go well with a nice medium Connecticut Shade cigar, or a medium bodied Habano.
And now for the Miami Vice 2.0 recipe:
1 ounce or 30ml of light rum
1 ounce or 30ml of dark rum
1 ounce or 30ml of unsweetened coconut (not cream of coconut)
1 ¼ or 37½ml of pineapple juice
¾ ounce or 22½ml of simple syrup
½ ounce or 15ml of lime juice
1 dash of angostura bitters
4 strawberries
Cut the strawberries and put them in the glass. Add a tiny bit of simple syrup to make it easier to muddle. Muddle the strawberries. Put all the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake for 15 seconds. Put crushed ice on top of the strawberries. Pour the contents of the shaker tin on top of the ice.
Inspector X
