Month: July 2012

5 Comments Posted on by cigarfan Cigar Reviews

Partagas 1845

I have been eagerly awaiting the second coming of the Benji Menendez Partagas Master Series, but my patience has yet to be rewarded. While my vigil continues, General has kept Benji busy on another Partagas project, one with a view to the future. Benji’s role in the creation of the Partagas 1845 was more as a mentor than a blender, but this may be even more important than the creation of a new cigar.

The fine art of cigar blending is not exactly endangered, but with all of the dark forces arrayed against the cigar industry I am happy to see the elder craftsmen passing the torch lighter. Benji puts it simply: the goal is “to help the next generation of cigar masters create new cigars and grow in the business. If I can plant a seed in their minds so they can grow a tree, I am happy.”

The Partagas 1845 was designed to sit in between the classic Partagas blend with the Cameroon wrapper and the full-bodied Partagas Black. Not too soft, not too hard. It’s the Goldilocks blend. (…cigarfan is available for brand name and marketing advice. Also children’s parties.)

The blend is sophisticated and unusual. Starting with the core of the cigar, there is Dominican piloto cubano and tobaccos from three different areas of Nicaragua. Some of these leaves have been aged in Dominican rum barrels, and about half-way through the cigar I found this really shows. The binder is a Habano strain grown in Connecticut, and the cigar is topped off with another Habano leaf, a Viso grade leaf grown in Ecuador.

The 1845 made its debut a couple months ago in the following sizes:

  •  Corona Extra  – 4.5” x 46
  •  Robusto – 5.5” x 49
  •  Gigante – 6” x 60
  •  Double Corona 7.25” x 54
Construction Notes

The Ecuadorian wrapper on the 1845 is dark, veiny, and somewhat ruddy, but it’s oily enough to give it a rich rather than a rustic appearance.  The wrapper is also quite thin, revealing the binder and giving the stick a bumpy appearance. The roll is a bit soft, but the draw is excellent and the burn is even for the most part. I had to touch up the burn occasionally for cosmetic reasons, but that probably wasn’t necessary. The head is finished with an eye to functionality, as is generally the case with General Cigars. The ash is dark but solid.

Overall construction very good.

Tasting Notes

I sampled this blend in all four sizes and found the smaller ones to be more concentrated in flavor, though not quite as smooth as the larger ones. The core flavors were the same, though they seemed to emerge at different stages depending on the size of the cigar.

The primary flavor of the Partagas 1845 is of sweet tangy wood, a flavor that reminded me at times of barbeque. This flavor becomes evident almost immediately in the Corona Extra, but it is a later development in the larger formats.

The larger sizes open with a mildly earthy, grass-like sweetness, whereas the smaller ones began with a woodier flavor. The smoke is somewhat dry and carries an acidic quality that I associate with Nicaraguan tobaccos. There is a touch of pepper, but it is employed here the way spices should be — as accents rather than entrees.

By the mid-point the 1845 picks up some leathery hints but the sweetness lingers on the nose. At this point there is a mildly liqeuer-ish, fruity quality to the flavor that might be a result of the the rum-barrel aging. I noticed this flavor in all four sizes (though at different stages) so it’s either a very consistent figment of my imagination or it’s there by the blender’s design.

The flavors darken a bit in the last third, charring at the band. The body remains in the medium range and even at the end the cigar is only moderately powerful. It has more heft than the Cameroon-wrapped “yellow box” Partagas, but it is also lighter (and much better, in my opinion) than the Partagas Black. But the flavor and style of the 1845 bear no similarity to its brand brothers, so the comparison is rather fruitless.

Conclusion

The Partagas 1845 is a fine medium-bodied cigar with a delicious aroma, but it suffers a bit from a lack of complexity. I preferred the runt of the litter here — the Corona Extra — for its concentration of flavors, even if it did get slightly abrasive in the last third.

Standard retail price for this line runs from $6.00 for the corona up to $7.50 for the double corona. If that’s in your everyday price range, this could be your everyday smoke.

Final Score: 88

Special thanks to General Cigar for providing samples. 

7 Comments Posted on by cigarfan Cigar Reviews, Don Pepin Garcia

My Father Cedros Deluxe Cervantes

My Father Cigars reports that they have 700 employees, but there is nary a typist among them. Okay, I’m speculating about that last bit. Perhaps there is another reason why their website is so attractive and yet barren of content, but I’m fond of the notion that it is due to a paucity of secretarial skills in the workforce.

Those 7000 dextrous digits are kept away from all keyboards and directed instead to the rolling gallery of the Garcia Family Industrial Park, where they are producing some of Nicaragua’s finest smokes.

Soon after the My Father line of cigars was introduced in 2008, the Cedros Deluxe line was added in the lonsdale and corona gorda sizes, called Cervantes and Eminentes respectively. At first glance it’s difficult to see why the cedar is necessary because the regular My Father line is an impressively rich cigar to begin with. I guess cedar is like cowbell — more is better.

Due to the lack of information on this cigar I’m going to hazard a guess that the composition is the same as the standard My Father line — a blend of Nicaraguan fillers and binder (grown on the Garcias’ La Estrella farm in Esteli) and a Habano-Criollo hybrid wrapper from the Oliva Tobacco company in Ecuador.

Construction Notes

The stamped cedar sleeve on the My Father Cedros is an attractive aesthetic feature as well as a flavor enhancer, and the fact that it slides off so easily is pleasing as well. The wrapper is a ruddy colorado maduro with some fine veins and a touch of oil. As expected, the roll and the finishing touches at the head of the cigar are precise and refined.

The Cedros version seemed to burn a little bit faster than the No. 1, but it also seemed lighter to me, so maybe the proportion of ligero to lighter more combustible leaf is a bit different here. The Cervantes burned beautifully and exhibited in all other respects excellent construction, even exceeding the high quality of the the No. 1.

Overall construction excellent.

Tasting Notes

Anticipating my experience with the My Father No. 1, I was expecting the Cedros Deluxe to open with lashings of black pepper, but the Cervantes turns out to be a much more congenial cigar. Pepper is still front and center, but it’s balanced by other flavors and takes a civilized approach (as opposed to the hooligan mentality of the DPG Blue or the like.)

The cedar lends a sweet character to the smoke that blends well with an earthy and tannic flavor on the palate. A caramel-like quality shows up after an inch or two as the pepper relaxes.

The second half of the cigar develops more complexity as leathery flavors overtake the earthy ones. The smoke remains quite smooth and easy going, about medium in body and strength. The sweet cedary notes turn a bit darker. At one point I detected coconut, which might be attributed to environmental factors, like smoking in the waning hours of a summer day that pushed the mercury to 114 degrees. At the band the flavors start to char a bit and I’m ready to seek psychiatric assistance, or at least to go inside and cool off.

Conclusion

The My Father Cedros Cervantes is a slightly milder and more aromatic version of the My Father blend. I’m not sure if that is due to the size or if the blend has been tweaked for the Cedros Deluxe, but either way it suits me fine. It’s smooth and laden with cedar sweetness in balance with leather and earth.

Though perhaps not quite as complex as the No. 1, it’s well worth smoking as a medium-bodied alternative. Pricing is about the same, unfortunately — around $8-9 per stick. But in this case it’s worth the expense.

Final Score: 91