Cigar Review: EP Carrillo INCH Short Run 2014

Vitola: No. 62
Size: 5” x 62 ring gauge
Price $8.99
Purchased at Burns Tobacconist

Background

I realized something about myself today. As I prepared to write today, I had to decide between two cigars, both of which have things about them that I ordinarily either flat-out dislike or, at the very least, avoid because I prefer other sticks. That made me wonder: “Why is it that I keep coming back to certain characteristics I profess to not like?” Whether it’s a certain type of leaf, a certain manufacturer or blender, or a certain vitola, I always seem to keep trying things that I’ve not been terribly impressed with in the past. For some reason, I keep holding out hope that I’ll get shocked. Or maybe I’m just insane…you know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. But, then I have to point out the Honduran example…after years of not finding anything particularly rewarding in Honduran-heavy blends, the Oscar Valladares/Puros de Ballard blends and the new Camacho re-blends both surprised the heck out of me all at once earlier this year.

So I decided to take up the task of trying out EP Carrillo’s newest Short Run release. For 2014, they decided to do a twist on the INCH. When I started smoking over a decade ago, there were very few “big” cigars (“big” by today’s standards), but I and my buddies gravitated toward them…more tobacco for the buck! We soon found that with a few exceptions, what you gained in more tobacco, you sacrificed in overall flavor and experience. I still think the LFD L-500 Cabinet is a great cigar (one of those exceptions), but I would rather have the L-250 on a regular basis. Over the years, I gravitated more and more to the “connoisseur’s” end of the pool in regard to ring gauge; these days I will go above a 50 ring gauge on just a few occasions: first, if there are simply no other options (like on some limited editions); or second, if they are given to me. The EPC INCH is a case of the former.

When INCH came out I ignored it. Not interested. Come out with a 3/4 INCH, and maybe I’ll bother. Then people started talking…and I found myself having to grab a few to try. Yes…I liked them…No, I didn’t love them enough to buy multiple handfuls and keep coming back to them…but still, it does go to show that when you blend a cigar specifically for a large ring vitola (rather than try to scale up something blended to work at a smaller size), the results can be excellent.

Blend info was taken from the EP Carrillo website (newly remodeled and offering up a good amount of info); apparently this Short Run version of the INCH has the binder and wrapper leaves tweaked from the regular production version. Here we get Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers, a Nicaraguan Corojo 99 binder, and a Dominican Corojo ’06 wrapper. The regular production INCH has a Nicaraguan binder (no mention of varietal) and an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper. I bought one of these for this review.

Prelight

The INCH is a big, thick cigar that doesn’t have as much heft as you might expect. Although to be fair, most sticks are less dense as they get thicker, and this doesn’t seem underfilled like a couple big sticks I’ve had in the past seemed. The band is still cool. The wrapper on this INCH Short Run really wasn’t all that attractive in appearance, though. There was a medium-brown coloration with a lot of splotchy darker mottling, some fairly large veins and quite a few lumps where the binder underneath was lumpy. Probably the best description is “rustic” although that’s not really what the marketing and vibe on this cigar is. It smelled great, though, with a sweet molasses and hay note, while the foot had a strong aroma of cedar and musty earth.

After clipping the head, I got more cedar and earth notes on the prelight draw, along with some sweet notes that reminded me a lot of the prelight flavors on the Four Kicks, a cigar EP Carrillo made for Crowned Heads.

Flavor

This size of cigar kinda does demand a triple-flame torch, but I soldiered along with my single-flam Xikar Tech until I got the foot completely engulfed in fire. When I was able to accomplish that, I got smooth flavors of wood and earth, with just a mild touch of pepper spice, and an even milder sweetness to round it all out. By about halfway through the first third, I was tasting more cedar than earth and the pepper had ramped up a bit on the palate.

In the second third, there was an overwhelming flavor of just straight natural tobacco, with minor notes of earth and cedar, and just a touch of sweet hay. The pepper spice lingered at the back of the palate and on the nose. During the final third, I got more cedar and a touch of citrus along with the hay and earth notes.

Construction

As is typical with large ring gauge cigars, the draw was great. Also typical was the ash which was solid enough to do an ash-stand with. The burn line was less than even, but there were no major canoes or anything like that.

Value

Big cigar, famous blender, small run…and still only about $8.50 to $9. I’d call that a good value.

Conclusions

All together, this was a very decent big ring gauge cigar, although still not enough to make me change my mind and start smoking jawbreakers all the time. The INCH Short Run 2014 had a pleasing complexity and medium to full body, making it a good choice if you do gravitate toward the larger sticks.

By-The-Numbers

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