The 1888 is VSI’s entrance into handmade cigars.  Until the introduction of this line in 2008, Villiger produced nothing but machine made cigars.  With this line, Villiger showed a growing interest into the world of premium handmade cigars and attempted to join the ranks of Romeo y Julietta and Padron.  While they aren’t as famed as the more established hand rolled makers, they have made their mark and are developing a following.

The cigar is clothed in a chocolate brown Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade wrapper with medium veining and mild to no tooth.  Some of the veining is a bit prominent, but it’s neither unsightly nor unpleasant.  The binder is Dominican, and the filler is a well kept secret of proprietary tobaccos.  The texture is similar to crushed felt: smooth but a bit of roughness at the same time.  It feels well rolled, with no soft spots, and barely any give when gently squeezed between my fingertips.  It isn’t the most firmly rolled cigar I’ve held, but it’s still nice and dense. The scent can be noticed before even bringing it near the nose.  It’s heavily earthy and floral, like freshly tilled soil in a rose garden, and it brings back memories of gardening with my grandmother.  Overall the cigar isn’t the prettiest, but it’s very pleasing to every other sense.

Using a Xikar cutter leaves a clean cut free of debris, and my torch makes quick work of toasting and lighting the foot.  I take a slow puff and am greeted with initial flavors that are sweet earth, then some hot spices that make the tongue tingle, followed by a strong dash of hardwood smoke and cashew.  The finish has a haylike flavor that’s mellow, though it doesn’t quite flow with the main body of flavors.  The hot peppery spice is like a mix of black and red peppers that are sharp, bold, and grab a hold of your attention.  The smoky, woody, and nutty flavors add more depth, keeping it from being a one note song, and help balance out the flavor profile.

As the cigar progresses the peppery fire builds, and is especially noticeable in retrohales.  A sweet baking spice seems to develop in the tail end of the flavors and mixes into the finish.   The haylike note is still present in the finish, but becoming less noticeable as the other flavors take over at the end.  Towards the last few inches of the cigar the peppery note settles down and the sweeter flavors come through more.  The earthy and nutty notes are more noticeable, though that spice is still present. The cigar goes from medium-full bodied to mellow and mild-medium bodied, and with a smooth and gradual transition.  An interesting note that I’ve noticed is how well the flavors seem to go with my coffee and light cream.  The nutty note in the finish goes well with the coffee, and it becomes a very harmonious blend of flavors.

Overall I really enjoyed this cigar, and found it to be quite pleasant as an afternoon smoke.  You can see where the later lines that VSI came out with got their start, and the flavor profiles share more than a few similar themes.  However, while the themes are similar, like the hot peppery spice, the way they are executed differs enough that they are all worth trying to see which you like best.  For something in the mid afternoon prior to a hearty meal, I would choose this cigar. For something after a meal, I would likely pick the La Capitana or La Libertad.  The mellower finish in this cigar let my palate settle for the meal ahead while still being bold enough to enjoy with my afternoon activities and drinks.  As with all the VSI cigars I’ve had, the quality of workmanship has been excellent, allowing for a slow smooth and cool burn that lasted well over an hour.  At a price point of $6.45, it’s also an good value where you can find it, and I encourage you to try one out given the chance.

I would like to thank VSI for sending me this sampler to try out.  I highly suggest that you take a look at their website and take a look at what they have to offer.  Cigar lovers can enjoy Villiger Cigars, pipe lovers can enjoy Stokkebye’s pipes and pipe tobaccos, and those that are a little on the bold side might enjoy the Oliver Twist Tobacco Bites.

Auchentoshan’s Three wood certainly has the spirity, menthol refreshing character we found in the their 12 year example. Just imagine that whisky with a sweet sherry knit sweater. The nose is a wonderful mix of subtle spice and sweet fruit that jumps in your nose in a very gentle dose. Often sherried whisky is so aromatic, especially if bottled at cask strength, that I need to back away from the glencairn glass after the first sniff. I kind of expected to be taken aback by the sherry in this case since those strong flavours would seem like a heavy handed blending technique with such a delicate base spirit. This was a very measured attack on my senses, however, and I could take a really nice long inhale to take in all the woody notes. A very appropriate whisky that  finishes so fresh and so clean. And just a little sweet.

If I could characterize Glenfiddich 15 year, it would be a woody spirit without the sweetness usually associated with sherried or other wood finished whiskies. It smells of all of the secondary wood aromas: sap but not honey, dried baking spices but not sweet fresh baked goods. Fresh fruit like pears but not overripe like fig. The new oak used in the first maturation could be the source of this dry character. The palate has some rich chocolate cream notes with a wave of dry spice and earthy honey on the finish that lingers nicely. A remarkable step up from the 12 year in terms of complexity and sort of an essay on wood aging in whisky in general.

La Libertad is the newest line of handmade cigars to come from VSI.  It’s made with Habano seed Peruvian leaf wrapper, Nicaraguan seed Peruvian leaf binder, and a blend of Dominican and Nicaraguan ligero leaves for filler.  This particular cigar is a robusto measuring in at 5×52.  The wrapper is a chocolate brown color with moderate veining and minimal tooth.  The cigar is packed and rolled well with no soft spots and no hint of poor craftsmanship.  It’s put together much like Stokkebye’s pipes: solid and aesthetically pleasing.  Just as pleasant is the scent, which is a strong mix of earth, cedar, with a very slight floral note.

I sit down in the cool winter air besides a fire and cut the cap easily with a good cutter, and light light it just as easily.  I take a slow puff and get a mouthful of thick smoke bringing bold and sharp flavors.  The first thing to come to mind is the word spicy.  Red peppers that bring senses alight and make the mouth tingle without being harsh.  Earth and hickory come next, but are second to that hot spice.  Between those flavors are hints of cinnamon, adding another layer of flavor and mingling well with the hot peppers.

As the cigar progresses there are subtle flavor changes.  That hot spice remains the dominant flavor throughout the cigar, and only mellows out at the last third.  A hint of sweetness develops roughly halfway through, and starts to lend itself to the woody flavors.  The sweet earth and wood takes over the hot spices in the last third, making for a smooth and relaxing end to a good cigar.

The cigar was a very enjoyable cigar, especially at the end of the day after a hearty meal.  I liked how it had sharp robust flavors, but still stayed medium bodied.  It was full of flavor without being overwhelming, and made for a good end of the day cigar.  The solid construction kept the burn steady from start to finish, and allowed for plenty of smoke and an easy draw.  All of these things came together for a quality cigar.  The price is roughly $5.00 per cigar, which is quite a steal.  It’s hard to beat finding a cigar like this for that little, making it quite the gem when you can find them.  The only downfall to these cigars that I could find is that not many shops stock them, so if you are able to find them I’d highly suggest picking one up.

I want to give special thanks to VSI for sending me this cigar to review.  I highly suggest everyone to take a look at their site and see what products they have to offer.  There’s really something for everyone.

Exploring the existing guides that abound in the beverage media has always left me with a sense that tasting wine “the right way” belies the actual experience most of us have when drinking any sort of fine ferment. We want to get as much enjoyment as possible for the often high prices we pay for these drinks. Cataloguing the fruit flavour components of a wine can’t possible be the best way to do this. This is primarily because even if you are a trained professional taster, differentiating between raspberry and blackberry flavour compounds is both somewhat subjective and largely pointless.

The Wine & Spirit Education Trust(WSET) systematic approach to tasting wine is a widely accepted standard that is rich in wine-trade jargon, and admittedly a method I do try to use occasionally in my own tasting notes. It is fairly useful for cataloguing large numbers of notes in a purely technical manner, and can be used to compare notes to other tasters who use the method. A tasting note from using this method is probably the least successful way to intuitively enjoy a wine, but I like to be familiar with standards like this before I come up with a variation that better fits my needs on a more casual basis. You can see in the chart below that this method is indeed quite technical, the type of terminology is what typically would bring about accusations of snobbery.

While the WSET method undoubtedly provides a lot of observed characteristics of a wine, it quite blatantly leaves little room for whether or not you actually enjoyed it. A lot of the reason for this goes back to the axiom of “there’s only good bottles, not good wines.” The same wine tasted many times over a period of a decade, for example, with different foods and company, inevitably will leave a variety of impressions. This is why I feel that the most important part of any wine tasting is to take note of the context. This means that rather than associating the wine I drink with its technical components, I first and foremost attach some sort of memory to that bottle. We all tend to do this naturally with music and food anyways. The actual tasting methods I’m going to suggest follow suite from this context-first methodology.

The first observation will always be the colour of the wine in the glass. This often is accompanied by a swirl and observation of the “legs”, or how the wine trickles down the inside of the glass. I find that for the vast majority of wines both observations are somewhat pointless. Observe the wine’s colour, but only take note in cases where it is somewhat unexpected. We would suspect that a young malbec will be a deep purple colour, but if it is red and fairly transparent, or has a brown hue, we might put that in our note. The next part of tasting is getting a good sniff in the glass. Get your nose right in there, and if you’re planning on really observing the wine, don’t hesitate to smell 3 or 4 times. Swirl in between if you like. Don’t try to think about the specifics of how it smells, like if it has a cigar-smoke or cherry smell, but sit back and think in general terms about the impression the smell leaves. Does it smell delicious? Is there a bit of a strange off-putting smell? Is the smell boring so that you’re not really interested in coming back to smell it again? Tasting the wine should be a similar process. Find the descriptors that suit how you think about wine and how you would taste it normally. I like to think of wine flavours not as specific elements but as fresh, or savoury, or artificial, or other types of more general adjectives. The finish of the wine, which lasts longer in some wines than others, I also find a bit redundant. I always feel like I’ve put enough thought into the tasting at that point, plus there are delicious wines with short finishes.

As an example, take for instance a wine I drank last night after work with co-workers, a fine vintage of Yellow Tail Chardonnay. I could approach tasting it two different ways, and these would be the results:

Clean-white colour, with gold flecks. Sulphur on the nose, then full-bodied with lots of rich tropical fruits and vanilla notes. The usual warm climate Chardonnay combo of oak and low acidity. Comes across quite off-dry and flabby.

Drank late after work on Valentine’s Day. Had some strange chemical aromas, almost like soap. Was quite drinkable but tasted a lot more like a melted Chi Chi than fermented grapes. Sweet and not very refreshing. Should have been colder.

Auchentoshan 12 Year has a vibrant, refreshing aroma that will evoke the back room in a florist’s shop. There are the floral notes but also a whiff of the green, stemmy parts and a distinct bit of clove. It smells snappy and clean. This clean sensation continues on the palate into a very spirity, sweet menthol infused finish. The colour of this 12 year is a pale honey, and although it is bottled at 40% and does finish well balanced, the pure spirit character and lack of sweetness makes it seem  a little stronger than it is. An invigourating dram that could be a gateway for gin martini drinkers.

While VSI isn’t new to tobacco, it only recently started offering premium hand rolled cigars in February of 2009.  Up until then, Villiger has offered high quality machine rolled cigars.  While this may seem like contradiction, VSI’s use of quality tobacco and high production standards ensured that they put out a good product.  Those standards have carried over into their hand rolled cigars.  Proof of that is evident in the long history of success between the two families that continues today, and will show through in this review.

The first cigar in this series of reviews is La Capitana, the newest edition to their lineup.  I was gifted a 4-pack in a handsome sealable bag that served to keep the cigars fresh and protect them with a soft lining built into the bag.  Some call it marketing, but I like it.  The cigars themselves are robusto sized, measuring 5×50.  The wrapper is a rich dark brown, almost black, Habano Colorado leaf with Nicaraguan tobacco for the binder and filler.  There is mild tooth and veins along the wrapper with oil glistening off of the leaf.  The abundance of natural oils also gives it a strong scent that has a heavy earthy tone with bursts of pepper and cedar.

A good torch let me toast the foot quickly, and a good cutter left a nice clean cut at the cap with a smooth draw.  The initial taste is of hardwood smoke and black and red peppers.  Sweet spices soon follow, lasting into a hay-like finish.   The flavors change a little when I roll the smoke on my tongue.  A sweet earthiness develops with the smokiness, blending with the spicy peppery notes.  There’s a little more body and robustness when I do that, but it’s tempered by the earthiness.  As a whole, there’s a nice harmony to the flavors, with some fair consistency.

The flavors change a little as the cigar progresses.  The peppery spices come more to the front, and the cigar starts to build up to become fuller bodied.  The sweetness lends itself to the spicy note as well.  It becomes a warm sweet spice, like when I open my grandmother’s cabinets in her kitchen, right before the strong black peppercorns that she keeps towards the back kick in and give a tingle that builds.  The woody and smoky notes shift towards the finish, and the entire transition is smooth and gradual.

Overall the cigar as very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to seeing these become widely available.  The flavor profile bears some similarity to La Flor Dominicana, but a little milder without such sharp contrasts in flavors.  The cigar definitely builds up to a fuller bodied smoke that’s flavorful without being a powerhouse kick in the teeth of flavor.  While I wish I had smoked on earlier to write about, I think it was better that I let the cigars rest for some time before lighting one up.  It seems the cigar had time to settle, and the flavors are smoother and mingle better because of it.  I’d recommend trying these if you enjoy a flavor profile that’s similar to what LFD offers, but in a smoother and gentler package that still holds robustness in flavor.  The construction was excellent, leading to a slow and even burn that let the cigar last over an hour with steady puffing.  Not once did I have to correct the burn or relight it, and the smoke remained cool and smooth.

I want to give a special thanks to Anne Dinkins from VSI for sending me these cigars to review.  I enjoyed the cigars thoroughly, as much as the Escudo pipe tobacco.  I would highly suggest looking through their website to see what else they offer, as everything I’ve tried from them has been pleasing.

One way in which Glenrothes distinguishes itself from other Speyside brands is by bottling its whiskies in vintages rather than using age statements.  Hence in your local whisky shop you might find The Glenrothes 1998, 1988, 1994, etc. as well as the vatted malt “Select Reserve.”  We’ve tasted the Select Reserve as well as a few of the vintages in the past, so were excited by the recent arrival of the 1995 vintage in North America.  Released last year in Europe, us new-worlders had to weight for this vintage, which Glenrothes describes on their packaging as follows:

Appearance: Medium golden, clear and bright
Nose: Floral, citrus and butterscotch notes with a hint of spice, white pepper and cedar-wood syrup
Palate: Rich, sweet, soft flavor, leading to rich spiciness
Finish: Sugared citrus peel soft fruits, medium dry with abundant spices

Here’s what we thought: Matured in 30% first-fill american sherry casks, the 1995 is a surprisingly light amber in color. However, the butterscotch and vanilla from the sherry appear instantly on the nose, complimented by cereals, orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg.  On the palate the orange peel and vanilla become more prominent, with sugary dark fruits coming through.  The mouth-feel is syrupy, with a sweet and lingering finish through which oranges and vanilla continue to appear.

Overall, this is a very pleasant dram. Priced only a few dollars more than the quickly-disappearing 1994 vintage, retailing for $82, this whisky is suitably priced for a 16 year old, and makes a great dram especially for those who enjoy sweet and citrusy whiskies with a solid dose of of butterscotch and dark fruits underneath adding complexity and depth.

Let’s start with how it looks, since I plan to display this Humidor proudly on my desk or shelf. Before I even got to the humidor itself, I was impressed by the presentation of the Adorini packaging, which made opening it feel very special. Some glossy full colour documentation and a protective black bag were nice little touches that emphasize the quality of their product. Removing the humidor from its bag, the cherry wood gleams from up to 20 coats of hand-applied lacquer. The wood grain is flawless, intriquing and luxurious. The sensation of luxury is heightened when you grip the lid and ease it open. The gentle sliding of perfectly fit-together wood is accompanied by a waft of the spanish cedar lining inside. Adorini’s use of gold plated quadrant hinges hasn’t just made the inside look good, but has made opening the humidor an exercise in functionality. Inside you find the usual humidor fare: an acryl polymer humidifier and hair hygrometer. There are a few bonus inclusions such as the cedar dividing plates, label clips for the dividers, and a series of ventilation ribs lining the humidor interior.

The Humidor Guide included in the packaging gives a lot of background and technical information both for the Adorini product and humidors in general. I followed their advice for prepping the humidor with distilled water(included). I wiped the inside down with the distilled water, filled the humidifier and waited a few days to transfer over my cigars from my old humidor.  Then I transferred most of my stock over. While 150 cigar count may be a bit of an exaggeration, most humidor cigar counts are more of a comment on relative volume anyways. With some creative organization, they fit quite snugly, but with ample room for airflow. I fit approximately 25 Robusto sized cigars, about 25 Corona Gorda size, and about 15 Lancero sized cigars before things started to feel like I needed to be creative in my organization. The upper rack can be adjusted by moving little wooden ledges in the ribbing up and down, allowing for some customization of the usable space.

It’s been several weeks and I’m quite happy with the Santiago so far. It was originally keeping the humidity inside a little high, at around 78%, but adjusting the plate opening on the humidifier fixed it to about 75%. Still a little high, although I will reserve judgement there until the humidor has had a bit more time to stabilize. I was expecting a bit of an influx of new wood aromas in my cigars that would take several months to blow off, however, this has not been the case at all. Clearly the cedar inside has been well selected and has a pleasant if mild aroma. In general the sensory experience of having a humidor like this is where the investment in a quality humidor really pays dividends. The exquisite richness of its appearance, the flawless nature of its wood construction and lid mechanics, and the gentle complexity of the wood aromatics combine in a way that is tough to describe. I’m very proud to display this humidor.

I do have a few criticisms about the Adorini’s design and features. The cedar dividers and tag system is a brilliant idea. However in this particular sized humidor I found that it was so easy to fill the space to the brim that there simply wasn’t the luxury of sorting space. It was easier for me to just stack different sized cigars side by side. The upper rack also presented a unique challenge for organization, because of the large space in the center that is designed to accommodate a digital humidifier/hygrometer. I’m torn about this large central hole. In one sense, it limits the storage and in particular the size of cigars that can be stored on the top shelf. The ability to peer down into the lower level and have improved airflow, though, is a big positive. Lastly, the magnetic plates that hold the humidifier and hygrometer on the underside of the lid provide a unique way to keep those elements inside the box without intruding on cigar storage-space. Having such quality instruments dangling, and sometimes sliding,  precariously from the underside of a precision built box seems somehow contrary.

Overall I feel quite happy about the humidor. It feels like I own the pinnacle in classic cigar storage design. This product can be found on Amazon, but if you watch for sales or troll e-bay you can probably find one for under $300.

On a visit to Cuba last spring, I had the opportunity to smoke many cigars with a close friend of mine.  Every day, we’d make at least one trip to the tobacconist, taking turns selecting the cigar we’d smoke that day (or hour).  On my turn the first day, I selected two Cuaba Tradicionales for us to smoke.  Later that day, my colleague chose two Romeo y Julieta Churchills.  This experience brought a multitude of pleasant surprises.  Firstly, selecting cigars for another person forces you to explain your choices, helping to clarify your own preferences and biases towards cigars.  Secondly, having someone else select a cigar for you will expand your palate and expose you to cigars you might not otherwise have tried, because with your current biases they might be too small, too large, too strong, too mild, maduro, etc. etc.

This past weekend I had the chance to spend an hour on my front patio smoking two Graycliff 1666 PG‘s, generously sent to us by the fine folks at StogieBoys.com. The dark Jaltapec maduro wrapper provided for much discussion: my cigar burned perfectly and evenly, while my brother’s cigar burnt well but the wrapper split and peeled at several points.  From this observation alone, we discussed at length the consistencies and inconsistencies of various cigars and cigar makers.  Containing filler tobaccos from Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, we both loved the taste of this cigar, but each picked up on different flavors. One flavor in particular I initially pegged as raisins, only to be refined by my brother’s palate which indeed recognized the flavor as prunes.  This back and forth discussing the nuances of the cigar refined and polished our palates, yet also improved our appreciation of this fine cigar.

So next time you’re going to smoke a cigar with a friend, I suggest you find a pair of matching stogies in your humidor, and both smoke the same cigar.  Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, try smoking the same cigar in two different vitolas, or perhaps two cigars of the same brand and vitola, but slightly different blend. From these experiments, you’ll learn that expanding one’s palate comes not only from smoking a wide variety of cigars, but also from smoking cigars with others and learning from their palate, whether it’s their first cigar or their thousandth.