Cigar Review: Room101 Namakubi Ecuador H-Town

Vitola: Lancero
Size: 7.5” x 38 ring gauge
Price $9.50
Samples provided by Stogies World Class Cigars

Background

As you may recall, we added Stogies World Class Cigars as a sponsor earlier in the year and in the tradition of transparency, they do pay us for the ad space, although with product instead of cash. When the first shipment of products showed up in my mailbox, there were a few extra cigars thrown in…samples of a couple “H-Town” blends, courtesy of the shop owner. H-Town is slang for Houston, where Stogies is located. The owner has an affinity for Lanceros so he has been commissioning quite a few store exclusive Lanceros under the H-Town banner. Today I am looking at the Namakubi Ecuador version of H-Town.

Namakubi Ecuador one of the many “limited edition” blends from Matt Booth’s Room 101 brand, part of the Camacho family of cigars, and Camacho themselves being owned by Davidoff. This cigar uses Honduran and Dominican fillers, a Honduran Authentic Corojo (something of a Camacho trademark) binder, and an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper leaf. This review is based on my second sample smoked, both of which Stogies World Class Cigars provided. You can purchase them online HERE. Also, I gleaned a bit of background info from Will Cooper’s write-up of the stick HERE.

Prelight

The overall appearance of the cigar is very good, with the regular Namakubi band being joined by the “Ecuador” secondary band and an additional “H-Town” foot band. The wrapper leaf was a dark chocolate brown with an oily touch and a good amount of prominent veins. The aroma from the wrapper was sweet with hints of chocolate, leather and well-aged tobacco. The foot had aromas of earth and pepper mostly, although I did get just a little woodiness in there, too.

Generally, when it’s too cold to smoke on the front porch (for me, when the mercury dips below 40º fahrenheit) I don’t try to review anything. When the temp gets that low, if I want to smoke I’m either in my car (driving) or in the mini barn behind the house with the space heater cranked up to take the edge off. The temp today was right at 30º and the “edge” of about 10-15 degrees was taken off by sitting out of the elements with a small electric heater blowing toward my calves. Honestly, it didn’t feel too bad compared with what I knew was outside and what I knew our New England neighbors were going through. At any rate, it might be time to investigate a smoke eater for the house. If anyone has any insight on that, leave it in the comments below.

I snipped the end of the Namakubi Ecuador H-Town with my trusty Xikar Xi and got a great draw that tasted of earth, leather and wood.

Flavor

Applying fire to the Room 101, I got a very strong cedar flavor up front, with pepper spice that started soon afterward on the palate and was quite strong at the outset on the nose. As I continued in I definitely picked up some leather and unsweetened cocoa powder, maybe just a hint of espresso bean. Overall, it started off as a fairly well-balanced medium-full bodied cigar. The only thing I could have asked for is a touch of sweetness to improve the balance, but maybe that would come along later. By midway through the first third, I had a nice roaring fire on my palate thanks to the Corojo leaf in the mix.

As I burned through the second third I got more leather and a fair amount of earth. The pepper spice faded a bit while I did get a little sweetness like I had wanted.

The last third had more earth and leather with a resurgence of the red pepper that had never completely gone away.

Construction

Perfect draw. Very even burn line. Solid ash. Not much more to ask, is there?

Value

If you like the Namakubi Ecuador blend, which I do, then $9.50 isn’t too much to pay for a limited edition Lancero vitola.

Conclusions

While it’s not my favorite Room 101 blend (that would be the original Namakubi), the Namakubi Ecuador is a solid blend and this vitola is a very worthwhile offering. If you like the Namakubi Ecuador already and are a fan of Lanceros, then I won’t have to convince you. If you’re more into large ring gauge sticks, maybe this is the one you should try in order to expand your horizons and get the full impact of a great wrapper leaf. Thanks again to Stogies World Class Cigars for letting me try this one out.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10