2fer Tuesday: Quesada 40th Anniversary

Background

To celebrate 40 years in the cigar industry, this year Quesada Cigars decided to release something called “40th Anniversary.” I guess that’s really not a huge surprise or leap in logic. What is a larger leap is the special size they concocted as part of this release…but we’ll get to that in a few minutes. From the company website:

The Quesada 40th Anniversary is intended to capture the very essence of our company: the synthesis of tradition and innovation. Originality does not spring from thin air but rather is the result of reinterpreting and building upon what has been accomplished. Consequently, it is only by embracing the past and using our knowledge of tobacco that has been handed down through generations that we will be able to create innovative blends and sizes. The Quesada 40th is the best expression of this goal to date. Quesada 40th combines secos, visos and ligeros of Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers with a Dominican binder. The beautiful, dark wrapper is cultivated in the San Andres Valley in Mexico. 

The 40th Anniversary blend is going to be a regular part of the Quesada line-up, using Robusto (5 x 52), Toro (6 x 54) and Toro Real (6 x 65) vitolas. To kick off the line, they also produced two limited edition sizes, a Toro Press (6 x 49), and the totally off-the-wall Salomon Press (6 3/4 x 50/33). I picked up a Robusto and a Salomon Press on a recent trip to Silo Cigars in Knoxville, and decided to present them both as a look at what will be sold long-term and what’s only going to be around for a while. First, we’ll look at the limited edition…

Vitola: Salomon Press
Size: 6.75” x 50/33 ring gauge
Price ~$13
Purchased from Silo Cigars

Prelight

It’s hard to describe this unique vitola, except to say that it looks kind of like an accident. If not given the official story, I would have said it looked like a round double-torpedo cigar had been stepped on and squeezed flat in the middle by someone with a very narrow and flat foot. The real story is that Quesada devised a special size as a way to pay tribute to the location the cigars are made: Cibao Valley in the Dominican Republic. The rounded humps at either end of the cigar are meant to represent mountain ranges, while the flat portion of the stogie is meant to be the valley floor.

The banding on the 40th Anniversary is very similar to what’s used on the Selección España, which is a look I like very much. It features a black band with silver and gold for the type and logos. Looking at the wrapper leaf, I wouldn’t have immediately thought “Mexican.” The leaf is medium-dark brown with a little toothiness toward the foot, but oily over all. Giving it a good sniff, I picked up on leather and semi-sweet chocolate aromas. The foot is too small to get any real aroma from. The cold draw was good; it had subtle earth and leather flavors, along with hints of black coffee and cocoa powder.

Flavor

Lighting up the 40th Anniversary took a little doing, even though the tip was very narrow. Once I finally got it going, the draw was expectedly a bit tight, but it started loosening almost immediately as tobacco started to burn. I picked up a bit of that Mexican earthiness right off the bat, although it was tempered and balanced with some grassy notes and some sweetness. As I finished up the first “mountain” I picked up on some salty flavors.

The middle third features more of those salty, slightly meaty flavors, along with earth and coffee.

As I headed into the last third, the draw got better very quickly. I was still getting the meat flavor, but started to get an increase of earth and a quick infusion of pepper spice, as well.

Construction

Building an odd shaped cigar like this is truly a challenge. I found the draw to be variably good and a bit tighter than I would prefer, but it was never plugged beyond smoking. The burn line was quite even and the ash was just a touch flaky at times.

Value

I know this is a unique vitola and I know it’s limited in quantity, but the price is still a bit high for the experience it delivered.

Conclusions

This was an interesting smoke, but I feel like it only gave me a glimpse of what the blend really tastes like. The constant struggle to keep it burning in the middle portion made me smoke faster, which could have changed the flavor profile to some degree. I’m glad I got a chance to try one of these, but I’m not sure I would spend the money to smoke another one.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 7.5/10

Vitola: Robusto
Size: 5” x 52 ring gauge
Price ~$9
Purchased at Silo Cigars

Background

So, a couple days later I moved on to smoke the Robusto vitola. I have to say before even beginning it, that my expectations had been lowered quite a bit because of my experience with the Salomon Press…but I’ve said before that I love being surprised by a cigar, so I held out hope that this would be the case…

Prelight

Although not a unique shape, the overall appearance of the Robusto 40th was very good, from the banding (which I believe works even better with the primary and secondary bands placed close together) to the oily, toothy wrapper (which included a closed foot on this vitola). The wrapper had the same leather and chocolate aromas, but I picked up a good bit of earth this time around, as well. Despite the closed foot, I got some sweeter chocolate and more earth there. The cold draw was very good and tasted of unsweetened cocoa, espresso bean and earth, with just the slightest tanginess in there as well.

Flavor

This cigar was difficult to get lit at first. I toasted the closed foot until it looked even, then tried puffing on it to get the filler bunch burning. It took about 6 or 8 puffs until I saw the tell-tale “flame up” but it went away quickly. I re-examined the foot and it looked like it was going well so I tried to puff again and got a somewhat hollow, partially-lit flavor so I applied more flame and still didn’t get a “flame up” moment, so I stopped trying and decided to let it rest and cool a bit before attempting more. After a couple minutes I tried puffing on the stogie and it was indeed lit and seemed to be evenly burning. I tasted lots of dark roast coffee and earth and even a little meatiness to the blend, although not quite as much of the porkiness that I got from the other size. As I progressed, I found it interesting that while I did find a good deal of bitterness in the blend (in terms of espresso and unsweetened cocoa and earth), it never displayed with the characteristic “Mexican bitterness” that I’ve gotten so frequently in the past.

I got an increase in the savory flavor of grilled meat in the second third, along with a touch more sweetness that balanced it out nicely. The meaty flavor diminished as the second third finished up and the last got underway, leaving a strong earthiness with some cocoa powder and bit of raisin sweetness. There was also the faintest bit of pepper spice building as I closed out the cigar.

Construction

The draw was always good on this vitola. The ash was fairly solid. The burn line was meandering and needed to be touched up multiple times. Also, the cigar did threaten to self-extinguish a couple times, although never quite getting there and not nearly as frequently as the other size. I’m not going to chalk that up to construction problems, though, as I believe some (or all) of that could be rectified with some additional aging.

Value

With a price under $10, these are much easier on the wallet.

Conclusions

Between the two vitolas I smoked, I have to give a strong thumbs up to the Robusto. The construction was better, the flavor was better…the overall experience was better. Still, it wasn’t nearly my favorite in the Quesada lineup, falling behind (at least) the Selección España, Oktoberfest, Heisenberg and Tributo. But I will say I enjoyed it more than the Casa Magna, which was some obscure lifestyle magazine’s cigar of the year not too long ago. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and flavor is in the palate of the leaf enthusiast. So try it yourself and you might find this full-bodied cigar right in your wheelhouse.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10