Short Take: Punch Rare Salomones

Vitola: Rare Salomones
Size: 7.25” x 57 ring gauge
SRP $7.99
Samples provided by General Cigar

Background

Since 2001, the Punch Rare Corojo has made an annual appearance, limited by the quantity of leaf General Cigar can procure for the project. This year they changed up a couple details. The first is the packaging, which they describe as “sleek” and “retailer-friendly.” The second is an “extremely limited” quantity of a new size, the Rare Salomones. The Honduran-made Punch is also available in 7 other sizes and no exact number was stated on for Rare Salomones manufacture

The blend for the Rare Corojo has not changed. It uses “a spicy blend of Nicaraguan, Honduran and Dominican” fillers, a Connecticut Broadleaf binder, and a “rich, reddish Sumatra wrapper cultivated in Ecuador.” Interestingly enough, none of the tobaccos is specified as “corojo” in marketing material or on the web. While much Corojo leaf is used for wrappers, it’s also used for other purposes (Camacho’s Corojo is a Corojo puro, using different primings for filler, binder and wrapper). Being as the binder is a Connecticut Broadleaf, most often used in Maduro-wrappers, we can probably rule that out. An Ecuadorian Sumatra leaf as a wrapper mostly likely precludes it from being considered Corojo, as well (although it is “reddish” which is one characteristic of some Corojo leaf). So we are left with the fillers.

Experience

I smoked a couple of the samples I was sent before I sat down to write a bit on the experience. The final cigar I pulled out shared with one of the early ones a very big problem: a serious crack in the wrapper near the head. Serious enough to put in jeopardy the completion of the smoke. This being a long-ish cigar, I suspect the transit via US mail wasn’t kind to all the samples. This is a good reason to buy your cigars in a B&M where you can pick one out of the box that will provide better protection during travel.

The wrapper was reddish, but a only slightly; it was a milk chocolate brown color, relatively dark for a Sumatra leaf in my experience. I found the aroma to be earthy and sweet. I carefully cut the head and the leaf damage didn’t seem to cause problems this time around; the draw was good and tasted sweet and spicy, with a touch of hay. I paired this Rare Salomones with some Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon.

In typical Salomon/Figurado fashion, this cigar was easy to light up, but tight to draw on for the first few minutes and the early burn line was nothing close to even. After getting through that very early stage, though, the draw got better and the burn line settled a bit. I got flavor notes of hay and wood on the palate, with a pepper spice on the nose. The flavor got sharper and stronger as I cruised through the first third of the cigar and the ring gauge narrowed.

By the second third, the pepper burn was evident on both palate and nose, while flavors of earth and cedar came through more prevalently on the tongue. The sweetness and slight burn of the Four Roses paired very well with the cigar, as well.

Overall, this was a very nice afternoon cigar experience. The Punch Rare Corojo Rare Salomones started off slow, but picked up steam throughout, providing a nice punchy (sorry) medium-plus body by the end with plenty of pepper spice and a mix of earth, cedar, and natural tobacco.