James Suckling Most Recent Comments: See Also: A Double at the BarPosted: 06:49 AM ET, August 14, 2007 I smoked a 1996 Partagas Lusitania from a cedar cabinet box of 50 last night in a small hipster wine bar in Hong Kong called Bar Aedes. This is a place a lot of the wine and restaurant trade hang in, and they don’t mind smoking. So cool…
Anyway, the Lusi was one of the best double coronas I have had in a long, long time. Wine and cigar merchant Thomas Bohrer brought them to the bar. The cigar was very flavorful, yet refined, with cedar, dried flower and nutty character. I gave it 93 points last night.
I hadn’t smoked a double corona for ages and neither had Thomas. I just don’t seem to find the time to smoke one anymore. And I have to admit that they are a bit ostentatious. I have even had people get aggressive when I have smoked one. I guess it’s something like “my cigar is bigger than your cigar.”
Luckily, there was none of that last night. And we just enjoyed what was a great cigar, with a few glasses of wine.
A Matter of TastePosted: 01:00 PM ET, August 02, 2007 Taste preferences are a funny thing, even with cigars. Last week, I had two instances when some buddy’s ideas about a cigar were completely the opposite of mine. And I am usually in sync with these guys.
The first time was when I was smoking a Padrón 1964 Anniversary Series Monarca sitting outside Punta Ala harbor in Tuscany on my friend’s boat. I thought the elegant yet rich smoke showed wonderful balance and perfumes with loads of flavor. He said that the Monarca had no flavor. I was ready to throw him overboard! I tried to explain to him in Italian that power is not necessarily flavor. I guess he is too used to his Partagas Serie D No. 4s.
The second time was smoking a Cohiba Siglo VI with a cigar merchant friend from Hong Kong after a dinner al fresco with some friends at my house. I thought the cigar showed wonderful richness yet was full of finesse with cedar, cappuccino and tobacco character. It burned wonderfully. In fact, I think it is one of the best cigars the Cubans have made in the last 10 years. It’s consistently a 95-point smoke for me. Yet my friend said “it lacked body and flavor.”
Perhaps smoking the cigars outside had some effect on the differences in opinions? It’s harder to focus your attention on a smoke outside, and surely some of the smoke and flavor dissipates more quickly compared to smoking inside.
Anyway, some prefer blondes, others brunettes…. what can I say?
Perfume to PoliticsPosted: 04:51 PM ET, July 23, 2007 I was at a big dinner on the Tuscan coast in honor of the American Ambassador for Italy over the weekend. About 40 or us were fêting the friendly and very professional diplomat, and by the end of the meal as we sat outside next to an illuminated pool, a few of us lit up some cigars. At my table of about 10 people, a friend and I were smoking Ramon Allones Specially Selected, the rich and wonderful Cuban robusto. Other tables had some Cohiba Robustos glowing.
Anyway, I overheard my friend speaking to the host of the party, a beautiful leggy brunette. He was commenting on how he could smell her perfume across the table. I think he was being a bit derogatory about it. He’s a wine producer and he gets rather pissed off when pungent women are in his presence and he is trying to enjoy his wine.
If I am seriously tasting wine, I see his point. But at a chic dinner, or just about any other time for that matter, a beautiful woman with beautiful perfume only enhances the whole experience.
I heard her say to my buddy, "What can you smell with that cigar going?"
“I promise you that I can smell your perfume,” he said. “And I prefer the smell of my cigar to what it is.”
I thought that the whole thing was getting a little out of hand. So I interjected, "I have a cigar as well. Let me see what perfume you are
wearing," as I raised my nose and gave a sniff across the table. "You smell like roses!"
"You’re right," she said with a big smile. "It’s Absolute Rose from Annick Goutal."
The table went quite for a second and then the conversation changed from perfume to politics.
Just Last NightPosted: 11:46 AM ET, July 17, 2007 I smoked a La Gloria Cubana Medaille D’Or No. 2 last night. It was the first of a box I had laying around in my cellar for the last 10 years. And it was the bomb. It was packed with decadent, almost cheesy aromas and flavors. Some might even describe it as raw meat. Anyway, it was rich and wonderful with lots of tobacco character as well that verged on cappuccino, and it finished the night off with a bang. The only thing better was the 1950 Croft I drank with it to celebrate someone’s birth year at my dinner party. I gave the La Gloria 95 points. The Port was 90 points.
The cigar actually was put in the box in 1993, which I think was a great time for Cuban cigars. Export production was very small at the time, may be as little as 30 million sticks. And the cigars, like the La Gloria, that were coming out of the Partagas factory at the time were stupendous.
I haven’t smoked any new production La Glorias in a while. But it makes me think that I should…
The Beauty of DifferencesPosted: 11:14 AM ET, July 12, 2007 I smoked a Juan Lopez Obus torpedo last night at a friend’s house in Tuscany following dinner. It was just the right thing after a few pieces of grilled Florentine steak and 1999 Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona Brunello di Montalcino Vigna di Pianrosso Riserva and 1995 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle. Both were in magnum. The small torpedo, or “campana,” was surprisingly mellow and refined with creamy, cedar character and medium finish. It drew wonderfully and delivered very pleasant flavors. 90 points.
The cigar, which measures 52 ring gauge by 5 ½ inches long, was introduced last year in France as one of the year’s regional edition smokes. Each year the Cubans specially make a number of cigars for selected markets and the Obus was for the French market last year. They came in both 25 and 10 cigar cabinet cedar boxes.
Interestingly, Josh Meerapfel, the Belgian cigar man who grows wrapper tobacco in Cameroon, was hanging for a few days with me with his wife. And he was at the dinner smoking away on a Arturo Fuente Don Carlos Robusto next to me. So I took a drag off it.
It was strong and more flavorful than the Lopez. But I wouldn’t say it was better. It was just different. It was like comparing the Brunello and the Hermitage. Both were excellent wines but very different.
Maduro Cohibas in Rainy LondonPosted: 04:27 PM ET, July 06, 2007
“F.. them,” said one of the cigar merchants at the outdoor cigar fest in the middle of the West End of London last night. ‘This will show them that they can’t stop us.”
He looked defiant and sure of himself. May be it was the mojito talking or the buzz of the Cohiba Maduro 5 he was smoking? But he was pissed off. And I don’t blame him. It seems strange not to be able to smoke in London, where many consider to be the world’s cigar Mecca. Since July 1, smoking has been prohibited in all public places, even in private public places like gentlemen’s clubs and country clubs.
It’s not going to be the same to stop in at my club in London, the Savile, and not smoke in the library or bar reading the paper with a glass of wine or Champagne. What am I going to have with my glass of vintage Port? London won’t be London any more.
But the tented cocktail party in a small park near Trafagar Square last night for about 500 people was more than a wake or protest to the loss of personal liberties like smoking in the UK. Hunters & Frankau, the UK agent for Cuban cigars, organized the event to celebrate the arrival of the new maduro Cohiba: Secretos (40 ring gauge by 4 3/8 inches) Magicos (52 ring by 4 ½ inches) and Genios (52 ring by 5 ½ inches). I smoked a Secretos during the two-hour event with a mojito talking to various cigar merchants and smokers.
It had the same spicy, coffee almost roasted dried meat character and the strength and richness of Cohiba that I remember when I smoked the cigar earlier this year in Havana. But perhaps it was a little less punchy. 91 points. Granted, this could have been due to the abysmal weather. It’s the first time I have ever had cold feet in July! What did Mark Twain say about the coldest winter he spent was a summer in San Francisco? Well, yesterday was one of the coldest and wettest days of the year for me! What would the great smoker say about wet and cold London in the summer like yesterday?
Anyway, we did get to smoke these Cohiba Maduro 5s, so I can’t complain too much. Read more
A Good RobustoPosted: 09:16 AM ET, June 28, 2007 I smoked a couple of Ramon Allones Specially Selected over the last week with some friends from Hong Kong. One is Alex Wong, who I believe is the greatest cigar collector in the world. He actually keeps the collection with his dad George.
Anyway, we smoked a RASS from my cellar, which was current production. It was boxed in July 2006. And we also smoked some from his collection, which were from 1996.
I found his robusto stronger and slightly bitter compared to mine, which had plenty of earthy, spicy, coffee and chocolate character. Mine was clearly a better smoke. It was balanced and flavorful without being harsh. 91 points. Try to get some if you get the chance.
The 1996 bothered me because of that bitter character. Alex thought that "it needed more age to come around," but I was not convinced. It was just too harsh and aggressive in the end. I was happy I had my cigars instead of his!
It’s good to see current production Cubans finally outdoing what I believe was a Golden Age for Cuban cigars, from 1988 to 1996.
A Boring PartagasPosted: 11:57 AM ET, June 14, 2007
A buddy of mine from Hong Kong, Thomas Boherer, stayed a few days in Tuscany at my house about a month ago and he was nice enough to leave a few cigars in my humidor. I am not completely sure of their age. But it seemed a current production smoke. They were big, burly ones too – a Partagas Salomones.
This is not the legendary Salomones, or perfecto/figuerado, that was made in 1996 in 100 humidors of 50 smokes. It was something made now or a few years ago.
In any case, I fired one up while I was watching a movie with my son the other night at home. I was looking forward to the spicy, earthy and rich character of a great Partagas. Unfortunately, the cigar didn’t deliver. It was rather mild with creamy, tobacco and tea character. It was even slightly weedy, or straw-like. It was a good smoke but nothing special. 86 points.
It’s funny, but big boring smokes can be real disappointments. I guess it’s because they are so big and beautiful that you expect more out of them than a small one. Anyway, I smoked it for about a half and hour and just put it down and let it go out. Why smoke a boring cigar?
The Terroir of Cuban CigarsPosted: 11:06 AM ET, June 04, 2007 I smoked a H. Upmann Magnum 46 over the weekend with a winemaker friend in Tuscany who also spends a lot of time in Geneva. The cigar was fantastic and it came from a large stash of 46s currently on sale at Gerard Pere et Fils in Geneva, which remains one of the great cigar shops in the world. Apparently, owner Vahe Gerard stocked up on the smokes about a year ago because he was impressed with their quality.
The man did well. In fact, I can still taste the Magnum 46's spicy, earthy, rich flavors and full and satisfying texture as I write this blog. The cigar has almost a decadent, meaty character to it.
“Smell this,” said my friend late in the evening on Saturday, holding his unlit 46 to his nose. “You don’t find that in cigars from other parts of the world. It’s that earthy, rich character that only Cubans deliver. What’s that all about?”
I explained to him as we lit up our smokes that it was all about the same things as great wine…soil, climate, fermentations, aging, processing, and manufacturing. The French have a word for it—terroir—in regards to wine. My understanding of the term is that the greatness of a wine is a question of the interplay of soil, climate and man. We might use a word in English like ecosystem. I am not sure what it would be in Spanish – ecosistema?
In any case, in my opinion great wine and great cigars are a question of terroir. It’s when that amazing combination of soil, climate and the work of man translates through tobacco and grapes, which ultimately become a great cigar or a great bottle of wine.
And I had that feeling last Saturday night when I was smoking a Magnum 46 with my friend. I gave it 93 points. Try one.
Cigars and CannesPosted: 10:54 AM ET, May 24, 2007 Cigars still seem to be in fashion in the movie world, at least in Cannes. I was in the South of France for the annual film festival last weekend with some friends from Hong Kong, including Peter Lam and David Tang—both who also happen to own a piece of The Pacfic Cigar Company Ltd., the distributor of Cuban cigars in the Far East as well as Canada.
Lam is also a director of Media Asia, which is one of the largest film companies in the Far East. As I wrote earlier this week in my blog for Wine Spectator, he was in Cannes selling a new film he has coming out later this year called ‘Warlords,” which could redefine Chinese movies. It’s an epic film about three brothers battling together in what was known as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) during the Qing Dynasty.
There are lots of battle scenes but also a gripping story of betrayal, adultery and brotherhood that we can all understand. It is action packed and full of saga—along the lines of “Braveheart.”
Anyway, there were plenty of cigars burning during the weekend and I noticed at just about every restaurant or club I was in a number of people were smoking cigars. Most were puffing on robustos such as Partagas Serie D No. 4 or Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2, but a few were even brave enough to smoke Churchills and double coronas.
There’s not much better than sitting in Cannes with a nice smoke in an outside café and watching the world go by—especially during the Film Festival.
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