Vitola: Torpedo- 6” x 54 ring gauge
- MSRP $10
- Purchased from Burns Tobacconist
Background
Cigar manufacturers love to put anniversary dates and numbers on their cigars. It has become where it almost seems like a right of passage for a company to last long enough to put some kind of anniversary on a blend. There seems to be one philosophy that says “The bigger the number the better!” So you have HVC releasing the 500th Anniversary, which has nothing to do with the length of time the company has been open, but how long Havana, Cuba, has been in existence. Then you have the “Let’s celebrate an unusual number!” camp. So La Aurora celebrated their 107th anniversary…and have continued to do so every since with “107 Maduro” and “107 Cosecha” releases every few years, even though they are pushing 120 years now.
Definitely in the “unusual” category (in more ways than one) is Matt Booth’s Room101 brand. If you don’t know, Booth is a retired Marine and full-time silversmith and jewelry-maker, working out of Los Angeles. About a dozen years ago he got into cigars because of his uncle and in short order ended up setting up a brand that was made and distributed by Camacho Cigars, then Davidoff when Camacho was fully absorbed by them. He left Davidoff, partnered with Robert Caldwell for a time, and is now officially “independent” and “on his own” as a cigar maker.
To celebrate his survival in the business through all that drama, late in 2020 he released the Room101 11th Anniversary. For this release, he opted for a single-size Torpedo cigar, available in boxes of 20. All tobacco is said to be Nicaraguan and it features a Maduro wrapper, but the company is not revealing what factory they worked with. There will only be 1,000 boxes of this blend made. That’s a total of 20,000 cigars, which is significantly fewer than the number of early Room101 “limited edition” releases through Davidoff, which numbered somewhere around 100,000 sticks per releases, across a variety of sizes. That “not really all that limited” type of release led to “LEs” from 8 years ago that are still readily found in shops. I do like the fact that “limited” means something here.
I bought two Room101 11th Anniversary at Burns Tobacconist in Chattanooga. This is the second one I smoked. If your local shop doesn’t carry them, you can check out our sponsor, Small Batch Cigar. I got some information for this background from Cigar Aficionado’s article about the release.
Prelight
The box and band for the 11th Anniversary feature the now-familiar sakura motif that has been a common thread for Room101 releases for quite some time now. The background of both are black with gold foil for type and flower. Oddly, the flower has one leaf that is white on both box and band. On the box, it appears to be bleeding white down the rest of the flower, but that detail did not make it to the band. I wonder what the official story is on that detail.
The wrapper leaf was a milk chocolate brown with a bit of darker mottling and a decent amount of oiliness. It had an aroma of earth and charred wood and anise. The foot had notes of richer earth, dark chocolate, and fresh hay.
I took a generous cut with my Xikar Xi and got what I considered to be a very good cold draw. The flavor of the cold draw wasn’t great, though, with a chemical lacquer note on top of wood and earth. Probably a good time to remind you that I wouldn’t knock off points for cold draw flavors unless they were truly heinous and were evident in the burning cigar, as well.
Flavor
That chemical note did not come through when I fired up the cigar, however. What I did get was tons of cedar, some earth, and a bit of black pepper right off the bat. There was a dark fruit note, although mostly without the attending sweetness, which was a little weird. There was more pepper on the finish and on the retrohale, where I also got a stronger roasted nuttiness. As the first third burned along I picked up an unsweetened cocoa powder note that mixed in very well with the other flavors and the fruit flavor did gain a bit of sweetness.
The second third featured the introduction of espresso bean flavor and a continuation of cedar. Pepper was still there on the palate and nose, and the sweetness held steady.
The last third had notes of anise and coffee leading the way while the sweetness increased to a really nice level. Pepper spice had diminished a bit.
Construction
The draw was a little tight after lighting but I was able to recut with no issue. I had a solid ash and even burn line.
Value
Good cigar and a very good price for a limited edition.
Conclusions
The Room101 11th Anniversary was a good blend that got increasingly better throughout, which I will point out is the reason I smoke the whole thing before giving a rating. If I had just judged it on the first inch or two, I would have found it decent but unremarkable, buy by the end I was really digging it as the sweetness increased and added some extra balance.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10
