Vitola: Churchill (Concerto)- 7” x 50 ring gauge
- $11
- Purchased from Small Batch Cigar
Background
I had an idea in late January to do a “rate the ratings” type of thing this year. I enlisted the help off a couple cigar geek friends off mine to help me rate several of them, specifically with the aim to see “who got it right.” We have poured through several blogs and other media outlets to see who rated what as “Cigar of the Year” for 2019. We’ll be tackling some well-known ratings and some that might not be so well known over the next few week. Today we are starting off with the 800 pound gorilla—Cigar Aficionado—who rated the Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua as their Cigar of the Year.
Several years ago, Rafael Nodal moved the Aging Room brand over to the Altadis catalog, giving the brand a much larger distribution model. While the brand started off in the Dominican Republic in Jochy Blanco’s factory, the Quattro Nicaragua is made by Tabacalera Fernandez (A.J. Fernandez’s factory) in Nicaragua.
So, really, ratings are totally subjective…what I think of a cigar may not be shared by my reviewing partners in this endeavor. What they think may be wrong, what I think may be wrong…hell, everybody might be wrong…the most important thing is what you–the individual smoker–think of any particular cigar. If you like it, you should smoke it. Enough disclaimer…
We’ll be rating these on a scale of 1 to 5, like so:
1 – How much money changed hands for this review?
2 – Yeah, no.
3 – To Each His Own
4 – I Can See It
5 – They Got It Right!
Notes
Extraordinarily smooth and slightly oily wrapper that had floral and vegetal notes with a touch of earth. We all agreed that the foot of the cigar had rich chocolate and coffee bean notes. The prelight draw was full of sweet with chocolate and espresso bean, as well. One of my partners in crime found the band distracting with its tiny, hard-to-read type, so he took it off before lighting.
Once lit, we all three noted that the draw was flawless. One reviewer noted that it was “sweet and smooth…almost like a moist chocolate cake.” The sweetness abated a bit after a few minutes, with floral notes taking its place. There was a little pepper on the palate, but huge fire on the nose. As we made our way through the first third, one noted on notes of orange coming into the retrohale, while the other noted that the pepper had practically disappeared on the palate, while remaining fairly massive on the nose. I noted that I got a cedar note on the palate, with a semisweet chocolate finish.
One of our group has a great nose for room note and he mentioned “fudge brownie” coming off foot. The two other guys were mentioning how little flavor there was halfway through the first third, except on the retrohale, so even though it started off strong, it didn’t hold up well.
“After Jessica Simpson did the Dukes of Hazzard, when she wore the Daisy Duke shorts—that was her measure of beauty that everyone judged her by. I feel like a cigar like this making Number 1 has put a target on it’s back.”
“I don’t see how this made Number 1. I would almost swear that this was over-aged and beyond its prime.”
By the time I got to the second third, I even noticed that the flavor was muted. Natural tobacco and muted cedar were all I could come up with. There was little sweetness, less pepper than I would like, and just not much else. To be fair, this is not the exact same vitola that won Cigar of the Year, but there simply shouldn’t be that much difference between a 6×52 and a 7×50.
“Pleasant, but not remarkable.”
“Such a clean finish, it’s almost like I didn’t smoke a cigar…if you want to walk away with no memory of having smoked a cigar, this is probably the cigar for you.”
We all found that if we slowed down the smoking experience to almost no movement, we got more flavor, including cedar and almonds, along with a resurgence of pepper late in the second third. But really, why should we have to work so hard to get flavor? There are plenty of other cigars we have had that we don’t have to work so hard to have a pleasant experience.
“Sometimes the draw starts with a false sense of hope that the flavor is going to return, then it lets you down.”
“The finish is like soggy notebook paper from a spit wad when you were in eighth grade.”
“Now I want to go smoke a real cigar…maybe a Padron No. 35 Natural would do it.”
“We got pranked.”
“Vaporware.”
“My mouth just got kicked in the balls.”
“Like jazz hands without the fingers.”
“The most disappointing cigar I’ve had in a year.”
Conclusion
Yeah, this one gets a solid “1”…how much did they pay or, seriously, was there blackmail involved? The Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua was just not a great cigar, which would seem to be the basic criteria for “Cigar of the Year.” It wasn’t terrible, but it really was just uninteresting and basic and boring. Not a bad cigar if you want to just be smoking something to keep your hands busy, but not something you want to try to savor.
