Monday, May 16, 2016

Camacho 1962 Pre-embargo - Cigar Review

PROLOGUE
It is mid-May. I am in my wool overcoat. Thanks Obama. 

THE CIGAR
Camacho 1962 Pre-embargo
6 x 48 Toro - twisted pig-tail, closed foot
w. Honduran Jamastran ’99 Corojo
b. Honduran
f. Honduran, Nicaraguan, Cuban

Courtesy of Cigars City
PRE-LIGHT
Soft nigh delicate hand-feel and airy heft. Veins, but none tragic. Some spider webs. Seams are neither exceptionally tight nor even. Complexion is brown, no under-tone. Some trace of espresso bean marbling. Thin sheen over that. Cap is well-addressed yet still somewhat sloppily affixed under a wound-up pig-tail. At the other end is a mostly closed foot. Because when you are noshing on a tease of forbidden fruit (Cuban), you want to lead with a zetz of top-leaf (Jamastran ’99). Which makes zero sense until you find out about that particular 'vintage.'

Hand-feel. We've went far in covering that already, no? Packing shows a barely medium density off a Charmin squeeze. Balance seems good 'nuff; although lack of weight is a decent cheat. The thin sheen works up to a water based pomade on the fingers. There is a ridged vein in the 2/3 that might be of some burn concern. Schnoz along the shaft, and the foot is closed enough for it all to be shaft, is a blended sweet earth with spice and nutty wood. I clip the cap with a My Father freebie cutter and the cold draw is the shaft aroma delivered on a leathery under-belly. Seems to be some cream in the dusty red spice up top and a salty tang in there somewheres. Tension is a medium and fairly open. I can already see warnings against over-smoking this Pre-embargo offering.

LIGHT
I don't toast the closed foot, but I can tell you the initial smoke aroma is very earth-driven with a spiced mineral sharpness. That sharpness is on my tongue, too -- where it eventually dulls to a dusty note. Finish is -long already and gets some roasted salt on its legs. Hard to pin-point the sweet aspect of the earth... a lightly candied nut perhaps. A sweet hay note.  Second hottie is retro-haled to a mineral laced red spice rack of kind proportions. Very salted once falling to the palate. Sweet earth. Leather and suede. It's as if notes are jockeying for the back, not foreground. Third hottie is sweetly salted earth with a suede then leather under-belly. Up top is a dusty spice with malted butterscotch vibe.

Burn ain't perfect, but fine. Its line is thin+. Ash is loosely ladder-rung'd salt and pepper 70/30. It clumps off at about a half inch of powder. Packing is a tick softer off the light and pace is very quick. Room-note is of aromatic tobacco with a slight sour note. Draw tension holds and perhaps firms a half-bit. Smoke out-put from both ends is fully satiating though miles from over-powering.
ACT I
The sour note on the aroma is present too in the draw. Some bittersweet alongside the sweet earth. Butterscotch on its other side. Spices (dusty, musty), salt, hay. Very earth-driven as I believe I've said. Almost every note is an aspect of that earthiness. Creaminess comes up, toasts lightly. A taste of finely ground black pepper with syrupy espresso in its wake -- now, gentlepersons. We are humming. Roughly 20mins in and almost 2" in. Sip. Sip little sips.

Tangy finish that offers a Chinese restaurant tea after a brief white wine flirtation. Leather at the bottom is worthy of Ricardo Montalban's voice. As a kid in Brooklyn, I heard "Montelbaum" and was so confused -- he didn't look nearly Jewish. Tobacco grows from the earth and soars in aromatic fashion.

Construction is a beaut with a slight wave in the line. Combustion just as nice, tho quick. Profile is a very classic medium. Strength is low. This room-note is to die for. Kind and perfumey as a pipe, complex and heavy as a, well, cigar.

ACT II
Ash is now 80/20 salt and still fairly aerated. Mineral aspect mingles with salt and pepper up top with a spice rack just beneath. Beautiful simplicity. A floral note finds butterscotch in middlings. The sour note now has an interesting chocolate under-note. Now it's cream to the top with spices holding up roasted black pepper. Mouth-feel is oily from leather seeping. Salted lips and cheeks. Chocolate and a now lighter coffee note do neat stuffs together and apart.

Oak appears thusly: toasty note spins off cream and grows to a wood, then oak, then and now a near wine cask. Chinese tea muscles up in wake of the espresso dialing back to a coffee. Wine cask is light on wine, heavy on cask, and said cask doth char. Butterscotch either leaves or morphs caramel. Warms soft ice cream topping caramel. Pale nuts blanch in the background. The leather is beautiful. Finish seems unending in length and complexities danced. I do have to re-touch a nice-sized tick of top-leaf here. It is readily accepted. Chocolate picks up some malt addition and soars.

Finally, here at the end of 2/3, we coast a moment. Packing has ceased its softening. Draw is spot on throughout. Body portion of profile moves it up to a medium+. Strength remains low and allows me my faculties with which to grasp complexities. Salt is now in creamery butter and sauteed. Sour-note is an orange rind. Tea is lovely. Caramel yums. Earth still drives, but from the backseat in nuanced fashion, as ever. Odd to have coffee and tea in the same profile, but the field is so wide and long, they don't play with one another at all. Of all the interesting happenings, the spice is perhaps at the top of them. Dusty and sharp and bittersweet and of a mineral bent. Very near the earth, but separate. I'm probably not doing this Pre-embargo offering justice, gentlepersons. Smoke this.

ACT III
Leather continues to put on a heckuva show. A note re: black pepper. THIS is black pepper... a taste of the stuff -- not a zetz of immaturity, pow, in the kisser. It tastes like black pepper. Burn-line wavers toward unruly but self-corrects. The aromatic tobacco has me currently kvelling. Mouth-feel sees a greater tingle. Profile is a -full. Strength is a mild or low+. Ash has darkened a tick, and seems firmer via added oils. Retro-hale sees more black pepper. Shaft is soft and oiled, but maintains form well.

I take a puff whilst looking in my dollar store hand mirror, filler and binder and top-leaf are evenly lit. Chocolate goes toward tea instead of coffee and that's just odd. Wonderfully odd and quite brilliant. Caramel to coffee. Salt to spices and pepper. Citrus to leather. Spin yer partner 'round and 'round. I get a lil herbal alfalfa vibe at the band, it seems to spin around the mineral aspects. Charred oak with wine vibing bulges in the middlings. This Camacho, gentlepersons, is two full hecks of a smoke. Pace slows now and I welcome any additional seconds as they tick. Smoke stays cool and even.

I should mention my schmatta. Do.

SMOKE TIME
65mins
NOTES
This Camacho made me crave a Kosher pickle. It's an oft craving on its own; just thought I'd make mention. Too of note: simplicity side-by-side with great complexity.

PAIRINGS
Tea. Loganberry Manischewitz. A blonde coffee frilly thing.

K A P L O W I T Z SCALE
K being the least, Z the greatest
Appearance W
Construction I
Combustion W
Flavors/Body I
Strength P

FINAL GRADE
****A****

EPILOGUE
[file missing]