The Velvet Cigar

Posted By ironmeden on May 29, 2007

Friday night turned up a surprise.

I was going to meet an acquaintance for cigar smoking. I should of called him before I went out to the original meeting place.

I had traded emails with Jay earlier in the week and we were going to meet up at the Lilydale Yacht Club in Lilydale which is just south of St. Paul, MN. I drove out there and decided to stop at a cigar shop that I have not yet been able to get to. The store was The Perfect Ash.

I stopped in and the store itself is small. There were about 10 guys in there smoking. The store is very modern. Its a clean store. The humidor isn’t huge, but it has many different cigars. What was nice about this shop is that they have deals on cigars. They had a few racks of bargins such as 30% off or buy one get one free. The buy one offer was nothing appealing but they had discounts on decent cigars such as the Royal Silk.

I looked around for the Gurkha area, but they didn’t have much of a line up. What they did have was a full line of the Carlos Torano’s. They had Virtuoso which Elvis and I have been reading up on. I picked up a couple of these for about $10 each. The wrapper is very dark in color.
I left The Perfect Ash and went on down to the Yacht Club. As I drove up I noticed I was really out of place. Every car in the parking lot mocked me, BMV’s Mercedes, Lexus and others made fun of my Hyundai Sonata. I walked in, looked around for Jay but didn’t see him. I went back to my car and called him on his cell. He said he was there, but decided to head over to Stogies on Grand in St. Paul where his friend Steve works. I told him I would meet him up there.

It was only a 10 minute drive and much to my surprise I was able to find a parking spot quickly. People who know this area of Grand Ave know that on Fridays and Saturday nights parking is at a premium.

I walked in and saw Steve behind the counter and said Hi and walked into the Humidor. My eyes went to the large chest full of Gurkha Warlords. I had not seen these in stores and quickly grabbed one for $12.99. There is only one size of the Warlord which is 7×55. It has a dark and oily wrapper. It has 3 bands, a small clothe band at the foot, a cedar band and above that and the usual Gurkha band in the Gold tint lettering.

The construction looked very sturdy and the cigar had a unique quality that i’ve only seen on a few cigars. The wrapper had all these small bumps on the cigar. Not sure if this is because of the region of Nicaragua the wrapper comes from or if it comes from the aging process. It does give the cigar a different feel when held. I made a punch hole into the cigar and the head it crack a bit. I lit it up and took puffs, my mouth was going to challenged tonight. The gauge of the cigar was big, it does seem like a 55 ring gauge, but bigger.

The cigar from the start is smooth and has a nice white ash. Its densely packed, but has a medium draw. Not tough nor easy. About 1/4 way through it did get a little bitter, but that didn’t last long. Its a earthy in taste and it tastes like a Gurkha. Its not much different from the Grand Age. The cigar also got my saliva glands going, it was quite juicy.
About halfway through the wrapper began to crack and fray. One thing I noticed was the wrapper is very thin. By the time I got to the end of the cigar, it looked like I had stepped on the cigar. It was quite ugly and the guys were giving me shit for smoking it down to the nub, but I couldn’t put it down since it was a good smoke.

Here is a review of this cigar:

The Gurkha Warlord cigar stands up to its name with a massive size and strength. Robust and Satisfying are the words that best describe this meaty cigar. The Gurkha Warlord is packed, as you would expect, is housed in a tremendous chest done only as Gurkha can do. Another super premium cigar from Gurkha. This one could be Hansotia Kaizad’s finest blend yet. The combination of a juicy Nicaraguan wrapper that’s dark and durable with a complex mixture of Nicaraguan long-fillers proves that the finer things come to the Warlord. Not all is macho with this cigar, a smooth Connecticut binder is added to complete a medium to full-bodied smoke. Expect an array of rich, meaty flavors with a subtle hint of coffee.

I didn’t get any coffee from this cigar, but agree with the meaty and rich notes.

As we sat there and watched the Twins game a regular came in and sat a chair down from me. He picked up a La Gloria Cubana Series R and what caught my eye was the way he was lighting the cigar. He made a punch to the head of the cigar, but he was taking wooden matches and lightening the foot of the cigar, but he was not taking puffs on the cigar. One match would go out and he would begin to the the cigar again. He was only lightening the edge of the wrapper and only a small part of the cigar foot itself. I watched him use about 10 matches until he was happy with the light. The wrapper was burned off about 1/8 of an inch.

I asked him why he lit his cigar this way and he said that he was told buy someone that if you light your cigar in this manner, the cigar will burn more even throughout the smoke. I asked if it was true and he says he has been lightening his cigars this way for years and it works great.

I may have to try this out soon and test this theory.

Now Steve had come over to sit with Jay and I and we were chatting up new cigars and he said those magic words to me, we have the CAO Gold Maduro! I told him that he just sold 2 of those cigars. I have been looking around for this cigar locally but had not seen it anywhere.

One thing I noticed about the local cigar shoppes, they do have a lot of variety. Most places have Ashton’s, Arturo Fuentes, CAO’s but each place has some uniqueness to their lineup of cigars. The Perfect Ash has a large line from Carlos Torano while Stogies only has the 1959 version. Its nice to see each store have their strengths in their humidor.

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Categories: Cigar Indulgence, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua
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