Guayacan’s “Sabor de Chattanooga” Tweet-Up Exclusive

• Vitola: Lonsdale
• 6.375 x 44 ring gauge
• Expected to be $8.99
• Samples from Manufacturer

Background

This is a little story about how a cigar happened…

For those of you who already know, the annual Chattanooga Tweet-Up and Cigar Festival is a great time to gather with friends from across the country, smoke a few (dozen) cigars, sample some good food and drink, make new connections…and sometimes get your hands on something new and different. We have traditionally positioned the event just a little after the IPCPR trade show so we can be the first multi-vendor, consumer-friendly event held after it’s done, and that has resulted in us having some of the new releases first. But we also had some offers from manufacturers to do “Tweet-Up Exclusive” cigars. I fielded one of those calls from Noel Rojas of Guayacan a few weeks ago.

Noel was the big hit of the Tweet-Up about 3 years ago when he came out of nowhere to shock us all with the original Guayacan. Since then it’s been onward and upward for him and his company, so he wanted to return the love. But he let me make the choices on what the cigar would be. This was a first for me in that I know what I like but I also recognize what our customer want, and those two things do not always overlap…so I chose carefully.

I requested a Lonsdale format, a medium-to-full body, Nicaraguan filler and binder, and a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper…and Noel has delivered! I got the samples last week and we will have already made our event order based on those. I thought about an official name for this stick besides “the Guayacan 2015 Chattanooga Tweet-Up Exclusive” and Keith suggested “Sabor de Chattanooga.” Noel likes that, too, so I think that will be what we call this venture.

This has truly been a group effort with Noel’s mastery of blending coming from my general concepts and Keith’s naming idea. And thank you very much to Mike Hunter, owner of Burns Tobacconist, for letting me run with this.

Reviewing a pre-release cigar that is a store exclusive of the place I work…not to mention one that I helped develop…would be more than a little bit of a conflict of interest. So I’m just telling you this story, then sharing a few tasting notes with you.

Notes

I wasn’t sure if Noel was going to do custom bands for these or leave them unbanded…I was a little surprised when the samples showed up with the original Guayacan bands…but it works. The original is still a fantastic piece of artwork, especially as a first band for a new company.

The Broadleaf wrapper is oily, veiny, and a dark chocolate brown with just a little tooth. It has a sweet, leathery aroma to it, while the foot is more earth, barnyard and chocolate. Once cut, there were notes of dark fruit, earth and hay on the cold draw.

I lit the cigar and got an immediate earthiness and red pepper spice. The sweetness of the Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper wasn’t immediately apparent, but it did come through with a notes of dark chocolate and dried fruit in a few minutes.

You want some? You’re going to need to be at Burns Tobacconist for the 2015 Chattanooga Tweet-Up and Cigar Festival (August 6 – 8). We have 30 boxes of 10 sticks of the Guayacan Sabor de Chattanooga on their way to us and we don’t expect them to last out the weekend (although a second run is always a possibility). Tickets are available online now.