Monday, March 8, 2010

Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta - Monday, Mar. 8th

Apparently my tobacconist (hey Isy) reads my blog. I can't tell if this is a good thing, honestly. He'll have an inside scoop as to where to hit me where it hurts. Like "Hey Scott, we got in a whole bunch of corojo cigars and they're cheap! Only $30.50 a pop."

Like kryptonite, I tell ya.

Anyway, hot on the heels of my recent Joya de Nicaragua Dark Corojo Antano review, Isy of Uptown Cigar posted a wee comment on my blog about having a special cigar for me. Since I don't have a lot to do over break, I figured I'd stop by today and chat with him and see what treasure he's got. He pulled out a beautiful little bastard: the Joya De Nicaragua Cabinetta. It is a strange beast indeed.
From the foot to the band, it is wrapped in Connecticut seed Ecuadorian wrapper. From the band to the cap, it's Nicaraguan Criollo. The idea behind it is that you can enjoy the deliciously smooth and creamy Connecticut wrapper while the spice of the Criollo permeates your lips. Or so Isy says. This time I managed to bring my camera! Woohoo! Didn't fail on this one. Clipped it with the Palio and away we go!

The pre-light draw was quite delicious. It was a crisp and sweet tobacco flavor coupled with...wait for it....sweet black tea. It was pretty delicious. The draw on it was pretty loose, I have to admit but it sparked up and drew silky smooth the entire time so no complaints.

The first quarter had a nice peppery spice to it; like the Dark Corojo Antano but more easy-going and not as harsh. The criollo definitely gave it some spice on the lips as I smoked it but it quickly wore off. Towards the end of the first quarter, it started to tame quite a bit.

About half-way it mellowed considerably, becoming sweet and creamy like the draw. If you've ever had torrone, that delicious Italian candy, it's remarkably similar to that. It was sweet and slightly nutty on the tongue with a viscous, creamy smoke. It was really nice. It settled into quite comfortably. Since it had calmed and mellowed so much, I decided it was time to add libation into the mix. Isy, ever the generous host he is, just happened to have two lonely bottles of scotch: a Balvenie Double Wood and a Clynish 14. They looked so sad being almost empty and Isy managed to convince me that they needed a home. In my stomach. Om nom nom:

He gave me a healthy pour. Healthy like the way fat guys call ourselves not fat but "healthy". It was a good afternoon. About this point we start getting to the last quarter. Sorry for the quality on this one, it's hard to smoke and take pictures at the same time. Especially after scotch.

At this point the spice started to kick up a bit as it got closer to the Criollo and it went from just creamy and mellow to almost like a spicy flan. It was still creamy but it was spicy and had a bit of caramel coming out too. I really wanted to get a good picture of the profile so I decided to smoke it down past the dual-wrapper joining point.


About a minute after it went into the Criollo section, a peppery spice kicked up that was really nice. Unfortunately, it was getting a bit bitter and burning hot at this point so I only let it go down another half inch before I let it go out.

This was a very nice cigar. I am curious to know how much it will cost when it does come out as I could definitely see myself buying these regularly. The duality of creamy Connecticut seed and the Criollo spice was a very intriguing juxtaposition. Yeah, that's right. Them's $2 words right there. Thanks, University of Rochester.

Big shout-out to Isy from Uptown Cigar for the hook-up. If you need cigars, he's where you should go. I don't know how to put this...but Isy is kind of a big deal. So, buy your stogies from him. Do it.

Do it.

1 comment:

  1. "The duality of creamy Connecticut seed and the Criollo spice was a very intriguing juxtaposition. Yeah, that's right. Them's $2 words right there. Thanks, University of Rochester."
    -That quote had me laughing my ass off! Thanks for the shout out Scott! Hope to see you back here soon.

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