The Velvet Cigar

Posted By ironmeden on April 25, 2008

Strolling around on a cool Saturday morning, I’m minding my own business when out of no where a new cigar shop is open! The clouds went away, the sun was shining, birds were singing, dogs stopped pooping in your yard! It was a day handed down to this cigar smoker.

Ok, it didn’t happen quite like that but I did hear a bird peep.

Elvis and I head out to tackle the new cigar shop in the Twin Cities area, Golden Leaf on West 7th in St. Paul. If your headed for the Twin Cities area, this should be on your list of cigar shoppes to visit.

The owner Tom Harlan has owned the Golden Leaf location in the Uptown district of Minneapolis for a while and saw an opportunity to expand. This new location is blocks away from the Excel Energy Center where it plays host to the NHL Hockey team the Minnesota Wild.

As you walk into the shop you notice right away how this shop is set apart from his Minneapolis location as well as the other cigar shoppes in the area. Your greeted with a high ceiling and a small sitting area to the left of the door, next to that is the counter. To the right is a large display of cigar accessories and pipes. Straight ahead is the humidor which I have to say is the largest in the area. There is a lot of room to walk around and stroll as you look for one of their premium cigars to smoke.

Once you made your selection, this is where it gets interesting, you have a few options for your sitting pleasure. There is a large room with 8 leather chairs and a large wide screen TV. There were 5 of us smoking in the room and the smokeeater was doing its job! Then there are the conference rooms. A party of people can relax during a business meeting in one of these rooms. They also have a room dedicated to poker with a great table.

The place is quite classy and both Elvis and I enjoyed our time there smoking a cigar.

We asked Tom what he would recommend and he suggested the new Perdomo from the Habano line. They recently released the Connecticut wrapper. This wrapper joins the already popular Maduro and Corojo wrappers.

I grabbed the Torpedo, which is 6 1/2×54. It has a few veins, but otherwise a smooth looking cigar. After I pulled it out of the cellophane, I noticed there were some very slight green highlights to the wrapper. Now this is the 2nd cigar in a row where I had to reference the info from the website,Keepers of the Flame and their great write of what you might find on the wrappers of a cigar. My previous post I had some light Plume and now this one some ‘green patches’.

The tobacco itself is blended using Cuban-seed tobaccos from three different regions,which include the Esteli, Condega, Jalapa Valley tobaccos. They’re wrapped in an aged Connecticut Shade wrapper.

I made a V-Cut to cigar and lit it up with a match. Right away the cigar had a medium to full flavored cigar tone. I felt a little spiciness on my tongue. This lasted about a minute and it seemed to calm down.

This cigar smoked like a champ, it burned even and had a bright white ash as you smoked along. The cigar turned more to a mild to medium cigar with slight almond and nutty notes. This is nice creamy smoke. The cigar was so smooth to smoke, there wasn’t a hint of bitterness.

I don’t smoke many Connecticut wrapped cigars, but this could certainly be one of my top Connecticut smokes. I highly recommend this cigar for any Connecticut lover.

Rating this on our new scale I would give this a 4 out of 5 which gives it the prestigious rating of Corinthian Leather.

Share on Facebook

Categories: Conneticut, Nicaragua
Tags: connecticut, golden leaf, habano, minnesota wild, perdomo, st. paul, twin cities, west 7th