Cigar Review: Paul Garmirian 25th Anniversary

Vitola: Connoisseur (toro)
Size: 6″ x 52 ring gauge
Price $18.99
Obtained From Maxamar’s Cigars

Background

Paul Garmirian Cigars aren’t ones that you’ll find in many cigar shops as they don’t produce a large volume of cigars a year.  However Maxamar’s has had them pretty much the entire time I’ve been going there.  Paul, a former chef, created a cigar company in 1990 and approached it how he did his cooking, trying to create a gourmet cigar.  As usual within the cigar industry he has created a cigar to commemorate his 25th anniversary in 2015.  There isn’t much information on what tobaccos are in this cigar but I can guess that it will be heavy on the Dominican tobacco seeing as they are produced at Occidental Cigar Factory which is owned by Davidoff.  They come packed in 20 count boxes and there have been only 1,250 boxes release for a total release count of 25,000 cigars.  This was my second experience with this cigar.

Prelight

The top band is the ubiquitous PG cigar band with the second band letting you know it is the 25th anniversary cigar.  The second is reminiscent of the second band on the 15th and 20th anniversary cigars.  The wrapper was a reddish dark brown with some black mottling.  It is definitely darker than the wrapper I’m used to seeing on the regular release, but very similar to some of the 20th anniversary cigars I’ve seen.  The wrapper also had a good amount of oils and tooth to it.  When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm to the touch and without any soft spots.  Putting my nose to the wrapper I noted the aroma of barnyard with the heavy aroma of barnyard and hay from the foot.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on I got a great draw with some hints of curry and sugar.

Flavor

It starts off with a heavy blast of spice on the tongue and retrohale.  After taking a few puffs to settle it down a bit I started to get flavors of cinnamon, red pepper, the “Davidoff mushroomy flavor”, cream and a sweet finish.  Towards the end of this third I also got some cocoa and leather flavors thrown in.  The cigar starts off at the bottom end of full strength.  When I got into the second third the spice was still very present but not at the nose burning level it was during the first third.  The flavors changed slightly to leather, earth, wood, coffee, cocoa and cinnamon with a sweet finish.  The cigar was definitely full strength as I started to a slight nicotine hit from it.  The spice also had mellowed out a lot by the end of the second third.  As I moved into the second third the flavors were pretty similar to those I noted in the second third, with the exception that the “Davidoff mushroomy flavor” came back slightly.  The spice also came back but it still wasn’t as strong as the first third.  I was definitely getting a slight nicotine hit from it as it stayed firmly in the full strength area.

Construction

The draw throughout was just about perfect and it produced a large volume of smoke.  In spite of the wind that was gusting pretty strong the burn line was relatively even.

Value

Yeah $19 is a lot for a cigar, but I felt that this cigar delivered enough enjoyment for the price.  And it isn’t out of line when you remember these are made by Davidoff.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed this cigar, a lot more than the first one of these I had.  That was probably due to these cigars showing up at the shop only a couple days before I smoked the first one.  This one had more time to rest and get acclimated.  From what I remember from the last time I smoked one of the 20th anniversary cigars this one seemed to have more sweetness, cocoa and earth flavors than it did.  They were about the same strength, pretty much full blast throughout.  Because of the cost it won’t be something in my regular rotation but something I’ll have on a rare occasion.

By-The-Numbers

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

If you’d like to give it a try our sponsor SmallBatchCigar has them for sale.