Cigar Review: Hamlet Parades Tabaqueros by Rocky Patel

• Vitola: Corona
• 5.5” x 42 ring gauge 
• MSRP $8.00
• Purchased at Silo Cigars

Background

I heard about Hamlet Parades when I was at the 2015 IPCPR show in New Orleans. Our local Rocky Patel rep was showing me all the new items they had and made special mention of Hamlet, who was rolling cigars in the booth that day. She wanted to introduce me to Hamlet, but the man was busy at the time and I never got a chance to get back over to that booth. I remember all that, but I don’t remember why I never got a sample of one of those new cigars at the trade show…I got plenty of other RP stuff. I didn’t think too much more about the new line until I ran across a sample at the shop a month or two ago. I snagged it and lit it up one day when I was off…and pretty quickly put it back out…it was pretty bad.

So why did I end up buying another sample for review purposes when I got the chance? Because I had no idea how that cigar had been kept or how long it had been laying out on the counter when I snagged it. I talked to several friends and they said they had been really impressed by this blend so I figured I owed it another chance. I picked up a Corona while I was in Knoxville a few weeks ago.

To fill in the gaps…Hamlet Parades is a Cuban cigar master that has come to work for Rocky Patel. When developing this first RP blend, he decided to go with traditional Cuban sizes and methods in an effort to fuse “Cuban craftsmanship and Nicaraguan ingenuity.” The blend combines fillers from Nicaragua with two binders from Brazil and Mexico, finishing it all off with a Mexican San Andres wrapper leaf.

As noted, this is my second time to smoke this blend and I did purchase this cigar at Silo Cigars in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Prelight

The Hamlet Parades Tabaquero features a large “H” logo in red, surrounded by green and gold trim. The flanks of the band elaborate “Master of Tobacco” on the right side and “Hamlet Parades” on the left, then a much smaller redux of the “H” logo when the band overlaps and glues. A secondary band has “Tabaquero” rendered in gold on a red background with more gold trim. Oddly, nowhere on these two bands do you see the familiar “RP” logo (it is on the cellophane near the barcode, though).

The wrapper leaf was dark to the point of being almost black. It had a few veins and a bit of oils to the touch, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt drawn into it, almost like the deep blackness of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Before I could exclaim “My God! It’s full of stars!” I shook myself out of it (I was a little tired the day I wrote this)…but this seriously may have been the darkest San Andres wrapper I had ever seen and it immediately made me wonder if it were dyed, cooked, or otherwise altered to have a darker appearance.

I sniffed the wrapper leaf and picked up on touches of earth and leather. The foot of the stick had a stronger earthy note, along with a bit of cocoa powder and coffee. After clipping the head, I had a pretty good draw that had flavors of leather and anise, but just faint touches of earth and sweetness.

Flavor

Once I got the Rocky Patel Hamlet Parades Tabaquero lit, I tasted a very peppery beginning flavor profile. Red pepper on the lips and tongue at the beginning, followed by some earth and leather. It gave way a bit after a few puffs to more espresso bean and earth notes, but was still quite potent. And the retrohale was almost entirely pepper burn, as well. While not necessarily my favorite flavor profile, it was at least presenting itself as better than I remembered from my first sample, which I found quite encouraging. As I continued through the first third, I found the flavor profile settling in to a strong espresso bean with the bitterness that carries, along with earth and pepper.

Heading into the second third, the smoke was still plentiful and the cigar burned slowly. It was a touch harsh, though. I still tasted lots of espresso, earth and pepper, with the addition of some anise notes.

In the last third, anise and bitter earthy notes held sway, with coffee coming in behind and pepper receding to just a slight burn. The profile really could have used some sweeter notes to balance things out at this point.

Construction

I had a consistently good draw and decently long ash. The burn line needed a little touching up, but nothing major.

Value

The price point falls right in the sweet spot. I wasn’t a big fan of the flavor profile, though, so I am only giving it half a point for value.

Conclusions

The Hamlet Parades Tabaquero definitely represents a different way of blending for the Rocky Patel Cigar Company. It is bold and spicy and gritty in a way that no other RP cigar I’ve had before was. Unfortunately, the Mexican wrapper and binder leaves mostly displayed the characteristics that I don’t care for in leaf from that country: bitter and chalky. At times it had more to the profile, but at the end that’s all I really got. If you are a fan of the first wave of Mexican-wrapped cigars that started hitting the market a few years back (like La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor), you may very well like this stick. If you didn’t like those (and I most definitely did not), you’ll probably want to steer clear of this one and wait for Hamlet’s next blend.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 8/10