The Velvet Cigar

Posted By ironmeden on July 26, 2007

Last Friday night I had arranged to meet Elvis at a local brewery named Barley Johns. They make their own beer and have delicious dinners. It’s not bar food at this brewery. The restaurant seats about 30 max, its very small, but they do have a large porch area for smoking and enjoying your meal outside.

But close to the end of the work day I received an email from an acquaintance who was letting us know that Greg, who is the owner of our former cigar lounge Robert’s, it was his birthday that night and they were going to have a private party at Roberts. Both Elvis and I were torn. We had great plans to smoke a cigar and do a Flight of Scotches at Barley Johns.

We decided that we would still meet about 9pm at Barley Johns and after the scotch we would drive a few miles north and hit Roberts for the B-Day party.

Great! Plan set, I arrive about 9pm and order up a beer from a Guest brewer, this is what Barley John’s calls beers they serve that they do not make, it was from a local brewery Surly and the beer was named Furious. Boy was it ever Furious, one of the hoppiest beers I’ve tasted in a long time. It was great!

So I lit up my cigar the Carlos Torano Reserva Selecta and sipped my beer waiting for Elvis to come by. I looked through the Flight of Scotches and noticed a few new ones since my last visit.

Upon inspection of the Reserva Selecta, the cigar had a oily sheen to it even though it was locked away in a tube for god knows how long. It had a firm construction and it had the look and feel of being made with one tobacco leaf. It just looks flawless.

The cigar has 2 bands and both give the cigar an attractive look and a feel of that premium cigar. It also has a cedar wrapper at the the bottom half of the cigar.

Now would this cigar be $11 if it were not in a glass tube and didn’t come with a cedar wrapper? Probably not. Again I feel the average cigar smoker is paying for the companies marketing costs again. Just give a cigar with a wrapper and let me smoke it. I don’t need a gimmick to get me to smoke your cigar.

I cut the cigar and there was a slight cracking of the head. I probably should of let this stay out a few days in the humidor to gather a little moisture, but it didn’t take a away from the cigar.

There was a tough draw and I tried massaging the cigar a little bit and there wasn’t much give to the body of the cigar. About the halfway point the draw appeared to loosen up.

The taste is woody with a slight leather aftertaste. When I got to the end of the cigar I picked up some peppery flavor. It was a nice finish to a good cigar.

Compared to the Exodus 1959 and the Virtuoso, I clearly enjoy those cigars more then this one.

Now on to our Flight of Scotches. Elvis and I picked out 4 each, so we had a sampling of 8 scotches. The size they give is just about a shot. We each got about 2 sips from each scotch to get a good sample. Each flight cost $18 which is a great price for premium scotches. We enjoyed Oban 14 year old, Craggenmore 12 Year old, Laphroig 10 year old and a few others such as Glenrothes and Macallan 15 year old.

We had a blast tasting all these different scotches. Its nice to take notes on these and then look for them in a local store, but the challenge is to find some of these. Most of the big box liquor stores don’t carry a wide variety of scotches. Sometimes you have to search out a local liquor store that may specialize in scotches.

After our Scotch marathon was complete we packed up and headed up to Robert’s. This is something I thought I’d never do again. It was a little sentimental to walk through those doors again. We got there about 12am and there was still a crowd of people about 20. We greeted Greg, it was nice to see him! We enjoyed a few beers, smoked a Gurkha Legend and they gave me a case of V8 cans. What a deal!

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