Morning Cigar: Eastern Standard by Caldwell Cigar Company

Vitola: Cream Crush (Churchill)
Size: 7” x 48 ring gauge
Price ~$11
Purchased at Burns Tobacconist

A little leaf. A little bean. And hopefully a great Memorial Day Weekend Saturday morning experience…

Leaf

This last Thursday, Burns became the first store in Tennessee to carry the debut lines from Caldwell Cigar Company. If you didn’t know (I didn’t before I heard him tell the story), Robert Caldwell used to develop custom cigars for luxury hotels. A couple years ago he was tapped to head up the Wynwood Cigar venture that was part of the CLE groups launch (Christian Eiroa’s return to the cigar industry). Robert and Christian had a falling out and after some soul-searching, Robert decided to start anew with his own company. They launched the high-end lines of Caldwell Cigars in early May on the West Coast and have had huge success so far.

Robert told us that the Cream Crush (Churchill) vitola of Eastern Standard was his favorite so I chose it for my write-up. I originally was going to give it the “full review” treatment, eschewing any accompanying beverage besides water, but woke up on Saturday feeling like I wanted to smoke it with my morning coffee, so…here we are.

The band of the Eastern Standard features an mystery image of a man drawn by Miami-based street artist Evoca1 (all the artwork on Caldwell’s cigars is developed by him, actually). He isn’t “anyone” per se, but the image does cause some interesting conversations and speculations, which I’m sure will be stirred up more by the biographical inserts that customers will find in the boxes. The box we opened had a wild story about Hans Nielsen Lahkso, a Finnish fisherman who was raised by a school of fish before traveling to Cuba and inventing dirt. I snapped a photo so you can read along…

There will be other stories told…like how Robert came up with the name “Eastern Standard” in the first place. The motto “Live East. Die Young.” is inscribed on the band of each cigar, but in one evening I heard two different tales of how the blend got its name. One thing that isn’t in doubt is the blend content. Almost daring other companies to copy their blends, they publish the exact countries of origin, varietals and percentages used for all leaves included…and that varies from size to size. This Cream Crush Eastern Standard uses Dominican Criollo ’98 and Corojo and Nicaraguan Habano fillers, a Dominican Habano binder, and a unique hybridized Dark Connecticut wrapper. They cross-bred a Connecticut Shade leaf with Brazilian Mata Fina for extra flavor, then grew and processed it like a regular Conny Shade. The result is a slightly darker-than-normal leaf (for a Shade wrapper) that maintains the creaminess of a Connecticut, while adding extra pepper and spice from the Brazilian.

Bean

If you’ve been to my house in the morning (which none of you have…unless you have some kind of spy drone in my kitchen) you’ll know my morning cup o’ joe well. It doesn’t vary much…I spend so much on being a cigar snob that I can’t afford to be a coffee snob at this point…maybe someday.

After an adequate time of searching for a great “everyday” brew, I settled on Eight O’Clock Coffee’s French Roast. Dark and rich, though not as dark as Starbucks’ French, which tends to have a much more burnt flavor to it. I buy the whole bean and grind it myself every day, using a Krups burr grinder. It’s not the world’s best burr grinder, lacking a grind coarse enough that I would consider using it in a French Press, but overall it’s good enough for my drip coffee machine….which is a Hamilton Beach thermal model that is about 8 or 9 years old at this point.

The machine uses the typical drip system that has been the most popular here in America for about 3 decades, but instead of dribbling the coffee into a glass pot that sits on a burner, it sends it directly into a thermal carafe. The advantage is that the coffee does not immediately start the process of burning. A full glass pot of coffee will burn in less than an hour sitting on a burner; if you drink any of it (leaving the pot less than full) it will take less time. The thermal pot I use keeps my coffee adequately hot for 2 or 3 hours without the risk of ever burning.

Notes

The color of the hybrid wrapper was almost caramel-like, with a little bit of darker mottling. There were a couple prominent veins showing, though nothing outrageous. The aroma from it was sweet with touches of molasses…almost more Ecuador Habano than a hybrid Shade leaf. Sniffing the foot, I got earth and hay mostly. The cold draw was excellent; I tasted notes of hay and cedar.

The Eastern Standard gave up nice flavor right from the start. The smoke was creamy and rich, tasting of hay, earth and wood, with touches of molasses and black pepper.

The cigar was in the low-medium range for body right from the start and experience with the Robusto told me it wouldn’t stray too far up the scale during the course of the smoke.

As the first third continued, I got more sweetness and more pepper spice, while the hay and wood notes diminished.

My French Roast coffee was an exceptional pairing beverage with this stick. For more of an experimental pairing with a coffee drink, I might try this with a Caramel Macchiato or Salted Caramel Mocha.

Flavors of earth, pepper and hay intermingled throughout the cigar. It provided an exceptional smoking experience from beginning to end.

The Eastern Standard ranks right up there with the best of the Connecticut Shade cigars on the market, though it isn’t a mild beginners stick. The uniqueness of the hybrid wrapper leaf can’t be understated; I would rank this right up there with the Camacho or Oliva Connecticuts as one of my favorite morning smokes.

Herring. Dirt. Boat.