Contrary to what you might expect, this cigar is not made at the amazing and famous My Father Cigars Factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. However, it’s production location is not too far away at the Tabacalera Cubanas S.A. factory, also in Esteli. Now the actual name behind this cigar is El Rey de los Habanos, the company Don Pepin Garcia started in Miami(Little Havana) when he landed state-side. The headquarters is still located in there as well as a smaller El Rey de los Habanos factory .

This blend was released be Don Pepin to the public in 2006. From what I’ve been able to gather, the various names of the original 7 vitolas in this line all correspond to important years in Don Pepin Garcia’s life. However, I wasn’t able to find the significant milestone behind the year 1979. It seems also that although there were 7 vitolas available at some point, there are only 5 easily available now.

The band on this cigar has also changed slightly over time. As it stands now, there are two bands. The top band has a black background with a nicely scripted “Don Pepin Garcia” in the middle surrounded by some gold and red filigree designs. In an older band, the red and gold filigree was slightly different. Below that band is another thinner black band that says “Cuban Classic” with a line of gold and red on the top and bottom.

Now the Black Label is touted to be the strongest of the Don Pepin Garcia cigars. The other blends in this line are the Blue Label and the Series JJ (White Label). I’m going into this cigar with high expectations as I’ve come to know from many different Pepin Garcia blends. It’s a gorgeous day as I sit outside to spark up this cigar, so let’s see how it fares.

Cigar: Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic 1979 Robusto
Drink: Erdinger Weissbräu Weißbier Dunkel
Vitola: Robusto (5 x 50)
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano Rosado (Corojo 99)
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Niaraguan
Price: $4.50 – $5.50
Burn Time: Just short of 1.5 hours

Construction:
• The Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic has a light brown wrapper with a very nice orangey glow to it
• There are hardly any visible veins and the wrapper has a slight roughness and toothiness to it
• From head to foot, this cigar has a nice little spring when squeezed that is just about right
• The triple cap is finished off very cleanly and the foot looks to be fairly well packed but not overly full
• The draw on this cigar is just about perfect after a small slice with my double bladed guillotine cutter

Burn:
• Toasting was very easy and even, I sometimes have a hard time getting it right on bright days since you can’t see the flame, but this one toasted up evenly without any problems at all
• Through the first inch the Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic has had a flawless and even burn
• The burn continues to be just about perfect as I roll into the halfway point, nothing to complain about here, just a razor sharp burn
• It’s also allowing me to smoke slowly, never seems to go out
• A tiny touch-up was required because the extra glue on the band cracked the wrapper, so it caused a bit of a funky burn line

Smoke & Ash:
• Each draw is bringing a nice amount of smoke with no extra draws required
• After setting the cigar down, there is almost no visible resting smoke to be seen although it still gives off a nice campfire aroma
• The ash is very strong, even and clean with no flaking to be seen anywhere
• The nice light grey colors on the ash are very nice too
• Unfortunately, I knocked the first ash off accidentally and it went flying to the floor
• Each ash was easily hitting the 1 inch mark but since I didn’t have a proper ashtray with me today I had to tap them off early. You’ll also notice the ashtray picture is missing today.

Tasting Notes:
• The wrapper on the Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic gives off a mostly woodsy aroma, not much else to it
• The foot brings more woodiness but this time it’s a lot more fresh, like a fresh strip of cedar wood, very nice aroma
• On the pre-light draw I’m getting more of the cedar flavors but also an interesting fresh taste, almost like a light and refreshing mint
• Initial draws bring none of the typical Pepin kick you might expect, it’s more of a subtle roasted wood and almonds type of flavors
• The is a bit of leather flavors being thrown into the mix here and there along with some coffee notes that are starting to sneak in slowly
• As we get near the halfway point I can safely say the cigar has barely passed into the medium category so far
• The retrohale is bringing just a tiny bite along with a smooth cedar and coffee finish
• The coffee flavors continue to develop nicely, more of an espresso flavor now and the leather flavor took an interesting turn into a black licorice type of flavor
• The strength of the cigar started picking up closer to the final third as it launched into the high end of the medium range
• In the last third all the flavors started coming together and balancing even better as their intensity kicked up a notch
• There was a huge burst of awesome roasted almond and espresso near the end and the cigar finished with no bitterness at all, very nice ending

Final Thoughts:
I hadn’t had too many of these before so I didn’t have many notes to fall back on but what I did find was mostly good. And judging by my experience today, I’d say the don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic is another winner from this renowned blending master. I was happy to see another blend that didn’t have the pepper kick at the start but still had tons of flavors that were enjoyable. I’m not sure I would go for a Churchill vitola in this blend but as a Robusto it was excellent and I would definitely buy more. The flavors were enjoyable even if not overly complex and it burned amazingly even. My only real complaint was a little too much glue on the band that ended up cracking the wrapper a bit, not a huge deal. This might also have been because I tried sliding the wrapper rather than taking it right off. These are definitely worth trying if you haven’t had one before and definitely worth buying again if you have. I know it is a staple in many people’s humidors and it’s easy to see why. One thing to watch out for is the price, I saw a huge variety of prices and these can be easily had for under $5 if you look hard enough, and at under $5 this is a great value cigar!

Pairings:
This isn’t my first review with Erdinger’s Weissbräu Weißbier Dunkel and it definitely won’t be my last. This dark ale from Erdinger’s German brewery is a classic and tasty brew that I’d say falls somewhere in the middle of a dark ale and a porter. The unique consistency probably comes from the fact that this is a dark WHEAT beer, so it’s a little different from the rest. It’s not quite as light as a dark ale and not quite as heavy as a porter. It’s got an awesome array of roasted malt, dark berries, coffee and a tiny bit of bitterness to round out a very flavorful brew. It makes a great pairing with the Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic as well as many other cigars. Other suggested pairings here would include a dark roasted coffee, a stout or porter, and of course, some tawny Porto!

The post Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic (Black Label) appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

I recently received a package from a good friend Mike (@KnightRid) over at Stogie Review. Inside that package was a couple of sticks that Mike had known I have been wanting to try for quite sometime now. Alas, the time has come to fire up EP Carrillo’s Edicion Inaugural 2009.

The Good Stuff: Early last year Ernesto Perez-Carrillo decided it was time to seperate from his long time partnership with General cigar to set out and create his own family boutique brand. The first blend hitting the shelves of that brand is the EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural 2009 which was announced at laster year’s IPCPR in New Orleans.

The EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural takes a spin on standard cigar manufacturing by using two different binders in this blend. One Dominican, and one Nicaraguan which is then surround by a Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. The wrapper itself will not be able to be produced for a few years to come, even at that point who knows if this is a cigar that will be added to Carrillo’s standard portfolio. With only 150,000 sticks being made, it is safe to say that this is one exclusive cigar that you don’t want to miss getting your hands on.

Size: 5.5 x 52  –  Wrapper: Ecuadorian  –  Binder/Filler: Dominican/Nicaraguan  –  Body: Mild/Medium

Prelight: The EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural 2009 sports a very consistent light, almost sandy brown wrapper. Many very small veins can be found throughout the wrapper which is polished off by a very smooth, rounded cap that blend seamlessly into the body of the cigar. The Edicion Inaugural is extremely firm to the touch with little bounce-back, and absolutely no soft spots. Construction on these cigars a subpurb. The Edicion Inaugural is fixed with a dual band system, one smaller red one with the title of the blend embossed in cold ink, and a much larger band with the EP Carrillo emblem resting upon a earthy yellow, gold and black wrap with small tobacco leaves embed upon it. The wrapper gives off a very sweet, graham cracker aroma as the foot of the cigar only enhances the graham smell with a bit of earth toned tobacco. The head clipped right off with my double bladed Palio cutter.  The cold draw produced a spicy, graham cracker, and bread type flavor mixture.

First Smoke: This Ep Carrillo lit up with extreme ease under my triple flame butane torch. The first few draws of the Ep Carrillo Edicion Inaugural produced a very smooth, yet complex mixture of graham cracker, cinnamon, natural tobacco, and almost a citrus zest. The draw is effortless and produces a great amount of thick, grey smoke.  The Edicion Inaugural produced a whole mess of  woodsy, tobacco scented stationary smoke.  The burnline started out a bit rigid and sharp, but quickly corrected itself leaving behind a beautiful tight, white ash. The ash lasted  about an inch and a half before falling to it’s fate in my ash tray.

EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural 2009

Halfway There: Halfway through this EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural I noticed s light change up in taste. The dominant flavor is now that of pine wood with a heck of a little spice kick and citrus taking the back seat. Even the stationary smoke aroma became more woodsy than it already was. The retro hale at this point is very tasteful and smooth. Unlike most of Carrillo’s blends the Edicion Inaugural is very smooth and mild. I am not feeling even the slightest bit of nicotine as I truck through this bad boy.  The burnline is still perfectly even, and razor sharp.

Finish: The larger of the two bands had a massive amount of unnecessary glue applied and took a rather large chunk of the cigar’s wrapper along with it. Thank god the Edicion Inaugural has more binder than normal or this could have caused quite a few problems. Lucky for me, the missing portion of the wrapper didn’t cause any problems in the draw, but it did lead to quite a bit of cracking. It just goes to show how frail this Ecuadorian wrapper can be. I didn’t get any harshness at all from this EP Carrillo. In fact, I am pretty surprised the entire experience was as smooth as it was. The finishing flavors were a bit more bold in the pine-wood department, with strong tobacco flavors and subtle spice and graham cracker. The burn was perfect all the way through with no needs to touch up, or relight. Again, no nicotine kick whatsoever, no harsh build up towards the end, smooth pine, and tobacco flavored finish.

Overview: If it wasn’t for the fragile wrapper and excess in glue on the band I would have walked away with absolutely nothing bad to say about this cigar. Even with that, I think it was a very pleasurable experience and would highly recommend this smoke to the novice, and the enthusiast. Again, it will be a matter of years before the wrapper on this cigar can be produced again, and even then it is unclear if we will ever see this cigar hit production again. So if you are luckily enough to stumble across these cigars I strongly urge you not to pass them up. You will regret it.

Pairing: I decided to pair this EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural with some Erdinger Dark Heffeweissen (Dunkelweissen). Erdinger dark is a heavy, unfiltered wheat based beer with light citrus notes and dominant cinnamon and brown sugar flavors. The match was near perfect as it complimented the sweet notes of the EP Carrillo while really bringing the zest out of the cigar.

The post EP Carrillo Edicion Inaugural 2009 appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.