The Gurkha I am smoking today is called the Symphony. I had no idea what the name was at first because it’s not labelled anywhere on the cigar. Aside from their normal massive band, there is only one smaller silver and black band with an illegible signature and the following phrase: “A Century of Tradition | Silver Edition”. The signature happens to be K. Hansotia’s whose name is also on the standard Gurkha band. I searched high and low for the name and finally stumbled upon Symphony. Originally the cigar only came with the silver band but the traditional Gurkha band was added afterwards

The cigar itself is a limited production run (Big surprise, right?) of 3000 boxes for each of the 3 sizes that were produced. The production began in 2004 and the available sizes were Robusto, Torpedo and Churchill. Today’s cigar is the Robusto vitola and the size itself is a little larger than most Robusto, making it close to being a Toro.

Tony managed to squeeze in a review of the Gurkha Shaggy Maduro a long ways back in 2009. I’m also going with a very unconventional pairing here and something I wouldn’t normally try but who cares right?

Cigar: Gurkha Symphony
Drink: Rekorderlig Swedish Pear and Wild Berry Hard Cider
Vitola: Robusto (6 x 50)
Wrapper: Connecticut Shade
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Nicaraguan
Price: $4-6 (Original MSRP was about $15)
Burn Time: A little over 1.5 hours

Construction:
• This is fairly rough looking cigar, with lots of bumps and larger veins running the entire length of the cigar
• The wrapper around the cigar is a warm honey colour with some splashes of orange mixed in
• The top of the cigar is finished with a clean double cap
• The firmness of this cigar is fairly inconsistent, there are some soft spots and some hard spots
• The foot appears mostly well packed but has some areas spots that seem a little open
• The cap cut was a bit difficult since it was a soft spot on the cigar, so it squeezed together and made a bit of a mess but turned out ok in the end
• Draw is just about perfect at the start, nothing to complain about here
• As with a lot of Gurkha’s I’ve had, the large band was difficult to remove and once removed revealed a dark and damaged wrapper
• The bit of damage underneath the wrapper turned into a crack as the burnline approached

Burn:
• The toasting of this cigar was nice and easy, it glowed evenly in a short amount of time
• Through the first inch the burn is progressing nicely, a slight wave but nothing that looks to be worrisome
• As I work my way through the last half I’ve had no burn problems at all, I wouldn’t call it razor sharp but it is burning rather well considering some of the larger veins on the wrapper
• Despite all the larger veins along this cigar it burned rather well all the way down with me ever needing to give it a touch up
• Cigar burned a little hot near the nub so I had to set it down a bit early

Smoke & Ash:
• First reaction to the smoke it just right, each draw brings a good amount of smoke but it’s not overly thick or light
• There is a fair bit of resting smoke and a surprising amount continues to trickle through the cap after leaving it to rest
• The ash here is nicely formed but the color is not pretty, coming in with a brownish grey color
• First ash stayed nice and clean until tapping off into the ashtray a little past one inch
• The ash continued it’s clean and consistent shape holding on for at least an inch each time

Tasting Notes:
• The wrapper of this cigar gives off a very strong barnyard aroma. Close your eyes, take a whiff and you’ll feel like your visiting Old McDonald’s farm!
• Pre-light draw brought more barnyard type flavors mixed in with a helping of woodsy notes
• Initial draws are filled with mild woodsy flavors and a bit of a cinnamon flavor
• The retrohale is also fairly mild and mostly woodsy, with a dry and slightly creamy finish
• As I get to the halfway mark, there hasn’t been much change here, the primary flavor is still a cedar woodsiness and there are some minor hints of cinnamon like spice and a creamy finish
• The smooth creaminess continues and I’ve picked up a slight sweetness here and there
• The flavors are taking a light turn near the last third, they seem to be getting a bit more intense and body is building a bit. The lighter flavors like cinnamon and sweetness are pretty much gone now
• As I approach the nub, the flavors have changed to a bit of a burnt wood note
• The finish was fairly bland as most of the flavors had disappeared and the creaminess was gone a long time ago

Final Thoughts:
Surprising for me, this cigar started out fairly promising. It had the typical notes I would expect from a Connecticut cigar. It was smooth and enjoyable. As the cigar progressed it didn’t change up a whole lot which left me kind of disappointed. It’s not that it was bad, it was just one dimensional. It burned well with no need for touchups. I think this cigar had some great potential with the light cinnamon and sweet notes I was picking up but unfortunately they never shined too strongly. I don’t think this cigar is worthy of the “Limited” title since it doesn’t taste much different from most other regular budget connecticut cigars. When you factor in the price of only $4 at some online retailers it makes this a much more attractable package. When the cigar was first released the MSRP was near $15 and I would have given this a terrible review at that price point, but at $4 this would have made a reliable regular production cigar. It can be enjoyed by mostly anyone and makes for a relaxing morning cigar as well.

Pairings:
So after reading Tony’s success on his unconventional pairing awhile back in his review of the EP Carrillo New Wave Connecticut I decided to give it a try with one of my Connecticut reviews. So here it is! I went with something slightly different, a Swedish imported Hard Cider from Rekorderlig. The can promises a pear cider mixed with Wild Berries and clocks in at 7%alc./vol. So how did this weird pairing work out for me? Let’s just say it was like pairing this cigar with a watered down and carbonated cough syrup… Ya, that about sums it up! I’ve had some local Apple Cider that was very tasty but this one just didn’t taste that great. I’m going to chalk up the weird flavor in it to the preservatives and artificial coloring that the locally made Ciders from Ontario don’t have.
Besides that big failure, I can totally see how a fruity beverage can pair well with a Connecticut cigar, especially on a nice summer day. As long as you find a good one of course… As with most Connecticut cigars, this Gurkha Symphony would probably pair best with a coffee.

The post Gurkha Symphony appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

This just catches me as odd, and makes Gurkha cigars seem more like a novelty than a cigar brand to me. But lately, I have heard quite a few people in the cigar community speak freely, openly, and honestly about how great some of the Gurkha lines are. Not to mention my local shop owner boasts about a certain Gurkha that blew his socks off. Naturally, I gave in and I am here today to review (my first) Gurkha, The Shaggy madura toro.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

 The Gurkha family is amongst the leaders if not the leading company when it comes to Dominican Republic cigar manufacturing. It has been said that the Gurkha family’s main goal is to produce the finest vintage cigars in the world. They take every step in each and every cigar that comes out of the factory very seriously and the shaggy is no exception.

The Good Stuff: The Gurkha shaggy isn’t the newest cigar to hit the streets. In fact, It has been out roughly 3 years already. The Shaggy is packed with a 6 year aged Dominican binder and filler wrapped with an 8 year aged Connecticut wrapper. The amount of work that goes into each one of these cigars alone is enough to grab my attention.

Size: Toro 6×50  –  Wrapper:  Connecticut Maduro   Filler/Binder: Dominican  Strength: Medium

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

Prelight: The Gurkha shaggy is a pretty interesting cigar. First of all, the obvious. The Gurkha Shaggy has long filler tobacco literally sticking out almost an inch passed the foot of the wrapper, hence where the shaggy got it’s name from. The wrapper on the shaggy is a deep brown, and varies greatly in color. The wrapper on the shaggy looks almost like the brown, orange mesh-up on a calico colored cat, not to mention it is a lot lighter than the maduros I am used to. This isn’t a bad thing though. Many manufacturers are using synthetic dye to actually darken the shade and consistency of their wrappers. The Gurkha shaggy boasts just the opposite. The wrapper was very firm to the touch, and extremely veiny. It will be interesting to see how the burn line plays out amongst the shaggy foot and veiny texture. There are no soft spots, but there are two glue spots on the wrapper. One is a dab of excess glue that expanded passed the secondary band and spilled out onto the wrapper. The second looks almost as though the person handling the cigar had gotten glue on one of their fingers and used my cigar to wipe it off (I’ll post a picture of this further into the review). The shaggy is capped off with a very rounded double-cap. The band on the shaggy is far surpassed exceptional. This was something that has always drew me to Gurkhas. Although I haven’t purchased any, the packaging and brilliant wrappers make any Gurkha cigar stand alone next to any other cigar on the shelf.

This cigar was cut using my Palio double-bladed guillotine cutter and had absolutely no problems, or cracking during the cutting process. The wrapper smelled softly of cinnamon and ginger with a strong tobacco presence where as the foot carried the same tobacco scent along with very leathery aromas. The cold draw was very natural tobacco tasting, with hints of ginger, and leather.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

First Smoke: As expected with most shaggy-foot cigars, I had absolutely no problem getting the Gurkha shaggy lit under my single flame butane torch. The draw was wild and extremely loose at first, but I am expecting that to change once the burnline hits the wrapper. The first flavor right off the bat is spice. Spice, spice, spice. Luckily, after a few hard draws the pepper had winded down considerably leaving behind an amazing mixture of gingerbread, raw coffee, leather, and cedar. After burning into the wrapper the draw, as expected, tightened up quite a bit. The shaggy was still producing large amounts of thick smoke on the draw, while giving off little, to no stationary smoke. The smoke itself smelled pretty pleasant. That of earthy/woodsy aromas with a kick of spice. I was able to burn right through the glue spot in the following picture without any complications in the burn-line or changes in flavor:

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro with fingerprint shaped dab of glue

The burnline was very thin with slight waves. That’s expected when lighting up a shaggy footed cigar. The ashed produced in the shaggy area was a dark grey and very flaky while the ash in the wrapped area was a brilliant greyish white and extremely well packed. I got about two inches of ash before it gave way.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

Halfway There: Around the halfway mark the flavors began to smoothen out. The ginger and spice was still there, but had flatted with the leather taste. The pepper was no longer present, and the cedar was the most dominant flavor in the bunch. It also seems as thought I was pulling off a very slight citrus aftertaste, but that may have just been the beer I had paired the shaggy with. There was almost no signs of nicotine. This is one smooth and creamy cigar. The burn line had gotten just a little bit out of hand, but a quick touch up fixed that and it was back to normal. The shaggy is burning a lot quicker than most cigars I have had lately, but that may be due to the extremely well aged tobacco used to create it, and in no way dampened the overall smoking experience. 

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

Finish: One of the only things that have irked me so far about the shaggy is the massive bands it, alongside most other Gurkhas carry. I guess it’s a double edged blade between the massive amount of detail and significance they carry, and the amount of glue used to hold them on. The bands were both too tight to slide off, and carried much more glue that I had hoped for. As stated before some of the glue actually leaked out onto the wrapper of the cigar itself. But honestly, if band problems are the worst of my problems then this cigar has some great potential. The finishing flavors were much like the second half, gingerbread, leather and cedar. The pepper did make a brief re-appearance shortly before getting to the nub. One surprise was the smooth finish. There was no build up of harshness when reaching the end of this smoke, and that is not something I’m used to. Another good note, is the fact that I had no further issues with the burnline at all.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

Overview:The Gurkha Shaggy surprised me in many different ways. From the superb construction to the extremely pleasant taste. Needless to say my mind has been changed. I’m not full sold on Gurkha yet, but if my future experiences mimic even half of the enjoyment I have encountered while smoking this cigar, consider me a fan.

I would recommend this cigar to absolutely anyone. Enthusiasts will be able to appreciate the perfect construction and complex flavor profile. Novices will appreciate the smooth, creamy experience with the almost non-existent aftertaste. And non-smokers won’t be annoyed with you smoking one around them.

The value of this cigar is about average. I believe these were marked somewhere in the $7 – $8 range. Very affordable.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro

This Gurkha shaggy was paired with a New Belgium 1554 Brussel’s style black ale.

Gurkha Shaggy Maduro and New Belgium 1554

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