Vitola: Armageddon
Size 6” x 66 ring gauge
MSRP $10.99
Samples provided by Gurkha
Background
Gurkha is a brand that, quite frankly, is easy to dislike. In the past they have been guilty of brand proliferation to a vast degree, selling some brands only through B&Ms (mostly the more expensive brands), while selling others only through deep-discounters (which results in people wandering into a cigar shop, seeing a $15 cigar and saying, “I can get those for $2 each online!” It’s frustrating for the customer and somewhat infuriating to the retailer). At one time, a website listed over 100 different brands that were sold under the Gurkha name.
From what I’ve seen, though, some things have changed in the product development and marketing of Gurkha in the last couple years. There have been several “B&M-only” or “price protected” cigars produced, and even those tend to be less expensive than the cigars everyone remembers from 10 years ago, when it was highly suspected that packaging played a big role in how much the cigars cost. These days the packaging is for the most part more subdued, especially in their sub-brand, East India Trading Company. They share fairly simple wood boxes (instead of injection-molded, cigarette-boat-inspired shapes or something like that) with nice detail work, and bands that are much closer to traditional or “normal” (for whatever that means.
The third release under the EITC banner is the Rogue. I believe in letting the people who made it describe it whenever possible, so this is from their website:
Using a carefully selected blend of tobaccos, Rogue is a bold, box-pressed cigar with crafted unfinished foot. The blend features a Ecuadorian, Habano wrapper, combining a rare Ecuadorian binder with a specially chosen blend of 3-year aged Ligero’s from Nicaragua, Honduras and Dominican Republic. This full-flavored cigar has complex tasting notes of spice, rich tobacco and roasted chestnuts.
image from Gurkha website
Gurkha sent me 3 samples of this cigar and my first inclination was to smoke one and send the rest to someone else. After all, they sent me the largest ring gauge size as a review sample and I thought there would be no way I would enjoy it. How much happier would I have been with the 5.5” x 46 ring gauge “Rascal”? Hard to say…I’ll have to pick one up if I get a chance. Besides the Rascal and Armageddon, the Rogue is available in 3 sizes (that makes 5 total): Tyrant (5” x 52), Ruthless (6” x 54), and Bamboozle (6” x 60). This review is based on the second cigar of this blend and vitola that I smoked.
Prelight
You know that feeling when you pick up a cigar and it feels light for its size? If you’ve smoked long enough, I’m sure you do. That was the feeling I got when I took the first Rogue Armageddon on my front porch to light it up. Before this second sample, I decided to do some scientific analysis (disclaimer: may not actually be scientific). I weighed the 6 x 66 Armageddon and found it coming in at .67 ounces. I then weighed a Liga Privada T-52 Robusto (5 x 54) which came in at .53 ounces. The Rogue has a volume of 5 cubic inches, which comes out to .134 ounces of tobacco per cubic inch, while the T-52 has 2.8 cubic inches of volume, so .19 ounces of tobacco per cubic inch. I know…not all tobacco has the same moisture content, etc, etc, etc…the point was to try to verify my feeling that the cigar was light for its size…and I feel like this does so.
I really like the banding on the Rogue. It uses a faux-deckled edge paper with an old-looking, but still very edgy font, and a gold foil skull. From an artistic standpoint, I thought it was quite good, and not the least bit over-done, which is a criticism often raised against Gurkha (and, not unfairly, in my opinion). The wrapper leaf was a milk chocolate brown, without a lot of visual oils, but with a nice oiliness under my fingers. There were a couple larger-looking veins, but nothing I thought would cause any real trouble. Overall, it looked well-put-together. Giving the leaf a good whiff, I got notes of leather and earth; the foot had more earth and a nice sweet aroma to it as well.
Once cut the draw on the Rogue Armageddon gave no resistance whatsoever…which is not really a good thing. A tight draw is bad, but a draw that has no resistance is generally an indicator of being underfilled…the same issue I tested for when I weighed the cigars. There really wasn’t much pre-light flavor…it was mildly grassy, with a touch of earth, but mostly it just tasted like air. The first time I smoked one of these, the combined evidence so far lead me to believe that the cigar just wasn’t going to be that good.
Flavor
It took a little work to get the Armageddon evenly lit…it is over an inch in diameter!…but once I got there, the flavor was actually very nice. I immediately picked up notes of leather and cedar out front, with a solid earthy follow-up and a kick-in-the-nose pepper spice on the retrohale. It all added up to a surprisingly good start.
As I went through the first third and into the second, I got a stronger earthiness and picked up on a strong black coffee note. Flavors of cedar and leather diminished, as did the peppery retrohale, but a more vivid note of well-aged tobacco came through instead. That continued through the final third as well, where the flavors of sweet hay came through in addition.
Construction
I may have mentioned this…the amount of filler was on the light side for a cigar this size. That lead to a quick burn and probably contributed to the somewhat flaky ash. Getting the burn even at the beginning took some major touching up, but mostly it was good. Also as a result of the light fill, the draw was too loose to be considered “great.”
Value
I’m a bit on the fence with regard to value with this cigar. I do think more filler would have made a difference on issues like burn time, draw and flavor, all of which would have increased the value. On the other hand, I enjoyed the cigar’s flavor enough that I would probably buy more, though probably trying smaller sizes when I get the chance.
Conclusions
While I was less than happy about the construction of this cigar, the flavor was solid and enjoyable, which is an achievement in itself for such a large ring gauge cigar. It does make me wonder, though, how much better the smaller ring gauge vitolas might be and I do intend to seek them out and try them when I get a chance. The body was medium-plus, so I would expect the smaller ones to be a bit fuller.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8/10
This review originally appeared at Tiki Bar Online
