Reviews by Keith

A bunch of us at CI, naturally, smoke several cigars daily, sampling tons of blends new and old alike, some great and some just decent, sprinkled in with the occasional atrocious, unsmokeable samples. Despite this I only get around to writing an "official" review once every few weeks. That's probably because I also write all the useless catalog drivel. You know, product copy for the junk mail we send out, the catalog you keep on the back of your toilet below the box of tissues but on top of the doily (any excuse to say the word "doily" I shamelessly seize). Well the last cigar I "officially" reviewed for the site was RP Connecticut. Smoking a bunch of these put me on a Connecticut leaf bender for the past 3 weeks. See, for a spell there this winter I was religiously smoking nothing but heavier-bodied, err at least medium-bodied, blends for the most part. But now I'm back, so very back, on the Connecticut shade wagon - at least for now. And Cu-Avana has been a steady part of that diet.

Cu-Avana is made by Manuel Quesada in the Dominican Republic. First of all, Manuel is a prince of a guy, a class act. He's made some extraordinary cigars including Fonseca (all the various incarnations including Vegas de Fonseca, Fonseca Series F, Fonseca Vintage, etc.) and was in fact the maker of the original Dominican version of Romeo y Julieta, plus a slew of other brands. Packed in a simple, painted box, Cu-Avana doesn't look like much on the shelf, I will concede. But there is a reason this cigar is such a horse in the sales department: consistency. Cu-Avana is as consistent as the day is long. Draped in gorgeous, golden Connecticut wrappers with nary a blemish to be found, coddling a super-tame, well-aged blend of long leaf tobaccos from the lush Cibao River Valley. One after the other, these things are meticulously constructed, and rolling it between your fingers you'd be hard-pressed to find a soft spot. The draw is just right - firm and not too easy, yet effortless, while booming out big smoke rings from its foot and beautiful blue-gray clouds from its head. Smooth and mellow, these pleasant cigars you could smoke all day long. And shit, for $2 to $2.50 apiece it's a helluva value too. As one customer once told me one day when I was hanging around our retail shop, "this is a Macanudo-killer!" Yet as consistent and as mellow as it is, it's no airball. In fact it reminds me somewhat of Ashton - ample flavor despite being so easy going, including a very faint but compelling lemon-like sweetness.

Oh and check this out: here's an old golf trick of mine when you're playing against a couple sandbaggers who have artificially inflated their handicaps. Chain-smoke Cu-Avanas while offering them something industrial-strength like The Edge by Rocky Patel. You'll coast through the round, improving with each hole, while the wheels start to come off their wagon as they get lightheaded and start shanking their drives into the woods. There's some free advice....as they say about free advice, you get what you pay for.

The more one smokes cigars, generally speaking the more one tends to gravitate toward strength and complexity over time. I guess that's natural, just like beer, wine, coffee or anything else - as you get more sucked in your palate evolves and you explore the boundaries. Thing is, mellow cigars never really get fantastic ratings or wild-eyed reviews because most of the people who write that stuff, subconsciously or not, seem to give less weight to tame smokes. Maybe it's machismo, maybe it's group-think, who knows. If you read reviews of micro-brews you tend to see stouts and Belgians get more high praise than lagers do. But of course there are great lagers out there - and you can't compare apples to oranges anyway.

That brings me to the Connecticut by Rocky Patel. To be sure, Rocky is known for full-bodied cigars. Most of his blends - whether it be his Indian Tabac lines such as Super Fuerte, Cameroon Legend, or Maduro, or his Rocky Patel series such as RP Vintage, RP Sun Grown, or The Edge - are complex cigars that lean toward the fuller-flavored side. This is very different, and it all started last August. I was in Danli with Rocky, and I asked him to develop an easy going blend for CI with a Connecticut-shade wrapper to be called Rocky Patel Connecticut (he claims now that it was all his idea, but Scout's Honor, that's the way it happened). Rocky, his sidekick Nimish "The Hindu Prince," and I each smoked about 35 samples on that trip before settling on this particular blend. Now 8 months later, the shipment has arrived and it was well worth the wait.

First of all, it's really pretty. The Connecticut wrapper is nice and smooth, the band elegant and simple, the box beautiful with its gold cliche logo, nothing ornate. That's just how the cigar smokes: elegant and not ornate. The blend is tame from head to toe, with a pleasant, slightly creamy taste - no dips and valleys, it's utterly consistent and unchanging from the moment you put the flame to it right up until the moment you lay down the nub. It's flavorful but not over the top, not overly complex, not bursting with flavor. In essence, it's got a clean, crisp tobacco taste, simple as that. Me likey. The most startling thing about it is the ash, it's as firm as concrete. In fact, burning my first RP Connecticut the ash was well over 2" - to pre-empt the ashheap from hitting my lap I decided to tap it off. But "break it off" was more like it. Amazing. Overall one of the top mellow cigars I've had recently.