Cigar Review: 20th Anniversary by Rocky Patel

• Vitola: Lancero
• 7.5” x 38 ring gauge
• $10.50
• Purchased at Silo Cigars

Background

There comes a point when I just give up on a cigar company. I’ll smoke nearly anything they put out, hoping beyond hope that somewhere, something will spark my interest and appeal to my palate. I had gotten there with Rocky Patel a few years back. The cigar that changed it for me was the Private Cellar, a mix of Nicaraguan filler and binder leaves with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. If you know me very well, you’ll know that that is a mix that is hard to screw up. And while RP Private Cellar was not a “classic, all-time favorite” blend, it did renew my faith in the blenders behind the brand.

Still, I couldn’t help but maintain some skepticism when I approached the 20th Anniversary samples I brought home from the IPCPR trade show in New Orleans this year. The first one I lit up shocked the heck out of me…easily the best Rocky Patel product I had ever smoked. The second sample wasn’t quite as good, but it was also a different vitola (Robusto Grande, if I’m not mistaken…the first was a Rothschild). From the company website:

Celebrating 20 years in the business of creating iconic cigars, we couldn’t deliver something short of magnificent. This cigar follows the lineage of the Rocky Patel Decade and Fifteenth Anniversary brands and takes things to a whole new level. With 4 years in development, this blend combines fillers from Esteli and Jalapa, Nicaragua, as well as Jamastran, Honduras. It is encompassed in an elegant Honduran wrapper. Box-pressed, beautiful and soon to be legendary.

Another page on the website says that the binder is a “trade secret,” to which I say…horseshit! Sorry, but the whole “we’re not going to tell people what it is because we don’t want anyone to copy it” thing is tired and worn out crap. Because of the many steps in processing tobacco leaves and the vast changes that can happen when you alter any of those steps, there really is no way to “copy a blend” just by knowing what leaves are used. Furthermore, I’ve met a couple people that can look at the leaves in a disassembled cigar and tell you exactly what they are…anyone with that ability can probably identify what’s used here. So the “trade secret” thing turns out to be just marketing hype. No one ever claimed that I was anything less than opinionated.

After the two show samples, this is the third time I’ve smoked this blend, and the first time I’ve smoked a “final shipping” version and the first time I’ve had it in a Lancero. We didn’t get Lanceros in at Burns, so I bought this at Silo Cigars on a recent trip to Knoxville.

Prelight

The main band is the same as what I saw from the show…nice and restrained, yet very classy in its use of black, silver and gold. The front has the RP logo and “1995-2015 Twentieth Anniversary” inscribed on it. The back says “XX Years and Counting.” The footband (which I don’t recall seeing on the show samples I got…though maybe it was there) said “Natural.” Since there is only one blend of these, that would seem to be self-evident, but it does seem to indicate (or at least leave the door open to) an upcoming Maduro (or other alternate) version.

The medium-brown wrapper of the RP 20th Anniversary had a good amount of oils to the touch and the aroma was mostly earthy with touches of wood and leather, as well. The foot had slightly riper earth notes to it, and a slight pepper hint. Once clipped, the prelight draw was very good and had sweet fruity notes…almost cherry…as well as lighter earth and pepper flavors.

Flavor

Lighting up with a single-flame torch was extremely easy…no big surprise with such a thin ring gauge stick. Initial puffs had more of the sweet fruit flavor, although it wasn’t as strongly a cherry flavor here, as well as stronger cedar and coffee bean notes. The retrohale had more coffee and pepper spice. A colleague of mine—who shall remain nameless here, to protect his reputation—has been smoking the RP 20th Robusto like crazy the last week or two; he thinks it’s the best thing the company has put out…and based on just a few puffs, I am still in agreement with him…and my assessment of the pre-release show samples. This is a very good, nicely complex stick.

Heading into the second third, the body was medium-to-full. The sweetness had changed into more of a semi-sweet chocolate note, while the flavors of coffee and earth continued on. The pepper diminished a bit, but kept up a nice burn at the back of the tongue.

In the last third coffee and earth notes reigned with teasing hints of chocolate and cherries come through every now and then. The ending is as tasty as the beginning.

Construction

I got a bit of an uneven burn part way through the first third, but after getting past that, the burn line kept in line. The ash was solid and the draw was great.

Value

Rocky Patel Anniversary cigars have always been a bit higher than most of the other lines, but the 20th is actually right in line with most of their other offerings, with this Lancero hitting at just over $10 a stick. For such a good cigar, I’d call it very good value.

Conclusions

If you, like I once did, have lost faith in the Rocky Patel brand, you really need to try out the 20th Anniversary, whether in the Lancero or one of the other smaller ring gauge sizes. This is truly an excellent blend with plenty of complexity and great flavor. The price is slightly outside the “sweet spot,” but not so much so as to prevent at least a sampling of it. This is one I’m sure to smoke again and again.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10

Leaf Enthusiast sponsor Small Batch Cigars has the Rocky Patel 20th Anniversary Lancero available online HERE.

Sponsor store, Burns Tobacconist, has the 20th Anniversary available in several sizes in-store only, at the time of this writing.