Interesting Tasting - La Aroma De Cuba
Last weekend I went to our local B&M, Tobacco Cove, for a La Aroma De Cuba – Mi Amori cigar tasting. I’ve been to an event at this B&M sponsored by La Aroma De Cuba a few months ago. They brought their standard cigar with the red band on the foot last time and on a side note, they are an extremely nice smoke IMO. This time, the representative Rex did something a little different that I thought was very interesting.
Rex set up a presentation to give before passing out the cigars for people to try. As you can see in the picture below, Rex set up individual plates with the cigar, a section of chocolate, almonds and coconut on them. With this he gave a small tasting of good rum (although the name escapes me).
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Rex gave specific instructions on how we were to smoke this cigar which started out a little strange for me because I never eat while smoking a cigar! Rex asked that we cut the cigar, toast it, and take three or four small pulls to get it started. He then asked that we take a small sip of the rum, take a little bite of the chocolate, a pinch of the coconut and some almonds in that order. If you are looking at the ingredients, an Almond Joy candy bar may come to mind. Once we had finished the rotation we were asked to take three or four slow pulls on the cigar. The rotation was supposed to continue until all the components on the plate were gone, unfortunately my rum was gone before everything else.
The interesting thing that I didn’t realize at the time is what he described as preparing the taste buds. By tasting chocolate, coconut and almonds before smoking, the taste buds were more expectant of these flavors (according to Rex) during the smoke. This actually caused the smoke to have more pronounced taste of toasted coconut and almond with a lingering sweetness.
Rex is calling this cigar a “dessert cigar” because of the subtle flavors that come through when you smoke it in this manner. I have to say that I did note the subtle nuances more when I followed his rotation. The flavor in the first 1/3 was very mild with the flavors described above. The second third came with a stronger flavor of toasted almonds and the aftertaste of chocolate picked up a little (or was I just eating the rest of the chocolate?). The last third lost the chocolate flavor and picked up in body without becoming harsh, just more of the same. It wasn't a very complex cigar but was enjoyable (if you are into that type of smoke) none the less.
Overall I have to say that I was actually a little disappointed with this cigar. It was good and flavorful (especially with the rotation) but it just wasn’t my style. I prefer a cigar with a more pronounced spice, there is virtually no spice in this stick. If you are looking for more spice, I’d stay with the La Aroma De Cuba with a red ribbon on the foot but if you are looking to try something new you won’t be terribly upset at this stick. The price point for it seemed a little high to me at around $7 a stick at the B&M (they are going for between $5 and $7 online). One thing that I will suggest is that if you try one of these try it in the manner described above. It was a different smoking experience that you may enjoy!
I hope that everyone enjoys my first "review". It honestly wasn't going to start out as this, I was just going to describe the rotation but when I was at the tasting I jotted down some notes and thought that I would include them.
