Cigar Snob Magazine September October 2019

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019

MEXICO CITY in

M UST try

MEZCALS

72

hours p. 41

p. 29

de los

Muertos p. 60

IT’S TIME TO FIRE UP THE GRILL, BREAK OUT THE BREWS AND LIGHT UP A BOLD ONE. IT’S GAME TIME. LET’S DO THIS. JOIN TEAM CAMACHO ON INSTAGRAM FOR BOLD CIGAR EXPERIENCES TO DOMINATE YOUR NEXT ‘GATE. AS A SIGNING BONUS, YOU COULD WIN A TRIP TO THE OFFICIAL BIG GAME TAILGATE AT OUR HOME FIELD, CAMP CAMACHO IN HONDURAS.

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editorials SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019

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PERFECT PAIRINGS THE TABERNACLE / MIDNIGHT IN JALISCO

This cocktail made with Mexican Coca-Cola that’s been reduced to a syrup needs a cigar that can balance out its sweetness and keep up with its long finish. Foundation’s The Tabernacle fit the bill.

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FIVE TO TRY: MEZCAL 30 DEL MAGUEY SINGLE VILLAGE MEZCAL – TOBALA / PADRÓN ANNIVERSARY SERIES 1964 31 MEZCAL XICARU REPOSADO / HERRERA ESTELI NORTEÑO 32 CASAMIGOS MEZCAL JOVEN / BALMORAL XO CONNECTICUT 34 MONTELOBOS MEZCAL ARTESANAL ESPADÍN / MONTECRISTO EPIC 36 LUMINAR MEZCAL AÑEJO / ESPINOSA HABANO

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DESTINATION: MEXICO

56

Q&A WITH NIRKA REYES

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MICHAEL HERKLOTS

Mexico City is one of the cultural and culinary capitals of the Americas. We spent a few days walking its streets, getting to know its cigar scene, and tasting some of the very best food the city has to offer.

Get to know the woman at the helm of De Los Reyes Cigars and some of the company’s newest products.

Some of the things that drew Mike to music also made him fall in love with cigars. Twenty years after his first smoke, the Nat Sherman VP is one of the cigar culture’s most effective ambassadors.

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features SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019

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LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

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FEEDBACK

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WHAT’S BURNIN’

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SMOKING HOT CIGAR SNOB

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RATINGS

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TWITTER SCOREBOARD

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EVENT COVERAGE

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

96 DAVIDOFF GOLDEN BAND AWARDS DINNER 98 DAVIDOFF IPCPR LOUNGE PARTY 100 MY FATHER IPCPR DINNER 101 MOMBACHO MEDIA PARTY / NAT SHERMAN’S WOMEN’S EVENT 102 BALMORAL HOSPITALITY SUITE / CIGAR MARKETPLACE HOSPITALITY SUITE 104 ALTADIS AT CAFÉ LA TROVA 106 ROCKY PATEL AT GALIANO CIGAR ROOM 108 DAVIDOFF AT THE BILTMORE 110 NESTOR MIRANDA AT THE WHARF

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SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019

VO L . 11 IS SU E 5 www.cigarsnobmag.com PUBLISHER & EDITOR Erik Calviño SENIOR EDITOR Nicolás Antonio Jiménez COPY EDITOR Michael LaRocca SALES & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Oscar M. Calviño PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Ivan Ocampo ART DIRECTOR Andy Astencio DIGITAL RETOUCHING SPECIALIST Ramón Santana DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER Gianni D’Alerta CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR Florin Safner CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS David Benoliel Andy Astencio Martin Crook Michy Watchao EVENT PHOTOGRAPHERS Jamilet Calviño M Place Productions Cover Photography by David Benoliel www.davidbenolielphotography.com Cover Model - Bonnie Janina Cigar Snob is published bi-monthly

by Lockstock Publications, Inc. 1421-1 SW 107th Ave., #253 Miami, FL 33174-2509 Tel: 1 (786) 423-1015 Cigar Snob is a registered trademark of Lockstock Publications, Inc., all rights reserved. Reproduction in part or full without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. Cigar Snob is printed in the U.S. Contents copyright 2006, Lockstock Publications, Inc. To subscribe, visit www.cigarsnobmag.com

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Well that was fun. I just spent the last couple of weeks drinking premium mezcal and pairing it with cigars on a daily basis doing research for this issue. I was pleasantly surprised at how well a good mezcal pairs with cigars. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that those were some of the most interesting spirit and cigar pairings we’ve done in years. I was told that would be the case by my buddy Joey Reichenbach of Drew Estate, and although I trust the guy with everything from tattoo artist recommendations to hair care advice, I wasn’t 100 percent on board from the jump.

While I was getting liquored up on mezcal, Hurricane Dorian was barreling toward South Florida with record-breaking wind speeds.

Let me tell you … putting up shutters is one helluva buzz kill. It never hit us, but sadly it stalled over the Bahamas and absolutely leveled the islands. The Bahamas are a frequent weekend destination for many South Floridians, so I’ve been pleased with the way that our local community has responded with an outpouring of donations and support. Similarly, the work being done by Chef José Andrés and the team at World Central Kitchen is truly remarkable. If you haven’t done anything to help the Bahamas get through this tragic situation, visit wck.org and donate. The work they did to feed the hungry in Puerto Rico during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria was clutch and seeing them spring into action again in the Bahamas is inspiring.

Allow me to come back to my mezcal-athon for a moment. The reason I was drinking so much of it recently was to produce the 5 To Try section starting on p. 29. If you’re a regular reader of Cigar Snob, you’re familiar with 5 To Try, but this one’s a little different. Most 5 To Try focus heavily on the brand or expression being featured but that wouldn’t have worked for this one because most people just don’t know enough about mezcal. Instead, I used that space to give you a sort of primer on the spirit. You’d be amazed at how similar the labor-intensive production processes are between artisanal mezcal production and premium cigar manufacturing.

In addition to the 5 To Try, we showed major love to Mexico in this issue. Nicolás Antonio Jiménez and Andy Astencio spent 72 hours in Mexico City for a travel story on p. 41. And you’ve probably already looked through the Día de los Muertos photo shoot on p. 60. Our production team, led by Ivan Ocampo, pulled off a minor miracle with this photo shoot. The challenge of producing a “Dia de los Muertos” shoot while not ending up with hokey Halloween-costume-looking shots was daunting and they nailed it. Bravo! And thanks to Drew Estate for providing the aptly themed Deadwood Tobacco cigars for the shoot.

On the not-so-Mexican side of this issue, we sat down with Michael Herklots of Nat Sherman and Nirka Reyes of De Los Reyes Cigars.

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Both of their stories are interesting and engaging from completely different points of view. Thank you both for your time.

As always, feel free to send over any feedback about the issue, good or bad, to feedback@cigarsnobmag.com. Check out our revamped website at cigarsnobmag.com and let us know what you think of that.

Of course you should already be subscribed to the Cigar Snob Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on social media at @cigarsnobmag on most platforms. Enjoy the issue, drink mezcal, and smoke fine cigars whenever possible.

Keep ‘em lit,

Erik Calviño ecalvino@cigarsnobmag.com

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PEAK CONDITION Hey guys, I just wanted to comment on what a great magazine you publish.

As a trainer (somewhat of the black sheep of trainers) my message/mantra is “Let’s exercise for the specific game we are all so passionate about, without having to give up our lifestyle, the foods we love to eat, great golfing, our favorite libation and of course a GREAT CIGAR!” Cheers,

Jeff K. Boca Raton, Fla. via feedback@cigarsnobmag.com Hey Jeff, That fitness mantra’s a mouthful, but it’s one we can get behind. We have been rigorously training our bodies for cigars and libations for years. We even switched to mezcal this issue. The trick is to really confuse your liver.

STICKER SHOCK Great magazine. I had my Cigar Snob sticker on the glass of my old humidor. I have a new, larger humidor with glass. Can u guys send me a new sticker to display on my new humidor?

Thanks!

Craig A. via feedback@cigarsnobmag.com Done and done, Craig! We don’t want anybody to think you suddenly lost your mind and stopped being a fan of Cigar Snob.

GET IN LINE I really enjoy the event coverage in all of your issues. I had no idea some of these events existed. In your July/August 2019 issue, you ran a piece on an event in Europe called Mountain On Fire, which looked like a darn good time! I’m not sure if I can afford to go to one of these on my modest income but if you wanted to give a pair of tickets away to one of your loyal readers I’d gladly accept.

Fred L. Sarasota, Fla. via feedback@cigarsnobmag.com Mountain on Fire was a pretty cool event. At least that’s what we hear from Erik Calviño. The rest of us are trying to get that same trip next year. Get in line, buddy!

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BLTC SANTA MUERTE BARRIO SANTO

Flor de Ynclan in this new Toro size to be an upgrade from the already highly rated robusto vitola.”

The Villiger La Flor de Ynclan Toro has an MSRP of $13.00.

FOUNDATION CIGAR SHIPS MENELIK, #142 LANCERO, HIGHCLERE VICTORIAN Black Label Trading Co. announced Santa Muerte Barrio Santo, an event-exclusive cigar made at Black Label’s Fábrica Oveja Negra in Estelí, Nicaragua.

“These cigars will be released as event only in limited quantities. It is a unique version of the original Santa Muerte blend with a maduro wrapper. I wanted something special for our retailers who host BLTC events and this cigar is exactly that,” said James Brown, creator of BLTC and owner at Fabrica Oveja Negra.

Santa Muerte Barrio Santo’s blend comprises an Ecuadorian maduro wrapper, Ecuadorian binder and fillers from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. It’ll be available in one format, a 5 1/2 x 48 Robusto, for $10.

VILLIGER ADDS A TORO TO LA FLOR DE YNCLAN LINE Villiger announced a new size for its La Flor de Ynclan blend (which features an Ecuadorian wrapper around tobaccos from Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua): a new 6 x 52 Toro.

“The Villiger La Flor de Ynclan seems to be a blend that we keep going back to,” said Villiger board chairman Heinrich Villiger in a press release. “Over ten years ago Matias Maragoto and I began on this journey to create a blend that would pay homage to the Pre-Revolutionary style of Cuban cigars. Although the brand has received many important accolades, I still felt that the blend can be an even better version of itself. We expect the Villiger La

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The festival will be held January 21 to 25.

Registration costs $1,600 per person. That price includes lodging, meals, transportation, and practically all the cigars you can smoke.

Sign up at nicaraguancigarfestival.com.

BRICK HOUSE CIENTO POR CIENTO J.C. Newman Cigar Company announced that its limited-edition Brick House Ciento por Ciento has arrived at TAA retailers.

The cigar was first made available to TAAmember stores at the TAA show in April.

The Nicaraguan puro (a first for Newman) — available in 25-count boxes in a 6 1/4 x 54 format — is made at Newman’s Nicaraguan factory, Puros de Estelí Nicaragua (PENSA). The wrapper is a Jalapa-grown Corojo.

Foundation Cigar debuted three line extensions at the IPCPR trade show in July.

Those three releases — the Menelik, the Tabernacle Havana Seed #142 Lancero, and the Highclere Castle Victorian — have begun to ship to retailers.

The Menelik is a soft-box-pressed petit robusto (4 1/2 x 52). “The Menelik’s flavor profile includes rich tones of cocoa, spice, and earthiness,” as noted in a press release from Foundation.

The new lancero (7 x 40) format for the Tabernacle Havana Seed #142 puts more emphasis on that cigar’s Connecticut-grown Cuban-seed wrapper.

The Highclere Castle Victorian is wrapped in Habano Ecuador, a nod to the first cigars to be imported into England in the Victorian era.

PURO SABOR REGISTRATION IS OPEN Registration is open for the 2020 Puro Sabor festival, which is the Nicaraguan cigar industry ’s annual Estelí gathering of smokers for tours, tastings and parties.

SCREWPOP TOOL’S INNOVATIVE CUTTER DESIGN: MAGPULSE

Screwpop has introduced a new cutter design called Magpulse. Rather than rely on springs to open the cutter, this design utilizes magnets repelling each other to push the two sides of the cutter away from one another at the push of a button.

The cutter is also novel in its design visually, with a striking minimalist rectangular shape. Each cutter body is milled from solid aluminum billets and finished with durable anodization “for years of use.”

The primary benefit of the magnets is that they’ll only degrade less than 1 percent over the course of a century, so they’re undeniably more durable a force than, say, springs.

The cutter weighs 3oz and measures 0.375” x 2.125” x 2.625”. It retails for $149.95 (but will be available at an introductory price of $99.95 for limited time).

Learn more at screwpoptool.com.

ATLANTA CIGAR WEEK Octavia Toliver of HERficionado, Henry Stokes of Tailored Ash, Tony Hall of Prince Place Cigar Lounge, and Jamison of Trilogy Cigar Company announced Atlanta Cigar Week 2019, which will run September 1622, 2019.

sential educational and medical supplies to African countries.”

and Añejo XO Oscuro (Mexican San Andrés wrapper).

Learn more and RSVP at atlantacigarweek.com.

The Balmoral Añejo XO Nicaragua blend features a sun-grown Nicaraguan Habano wrapper.

BALMORAL AÑEJO XO NICARAGUA

Atlanta Cigar Week will include a black tie awards gala, a pop-up happy hour event, a late-night party called BlackOut, an event at Cam Newton’s Fellaship, a “She Smokes Too” event to highlight the involvement of women in Atlanta Cigar Week, and a ‘90sthemed block party at Cigar City Club.

“Atlanta Cigar Week will donate proceeds from the event to Jump Africa to aid in funding the building of a new library in Ghana,” according to a press release from organizers. “Jump Africa is a 501c3 Georgia non-profit corporation founded in 2014 with a mission to facilitate the building of libraries, development and delivery of es-

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Royal Agio has expanded its Balmoral Añejo XO lineup with Balmoral Añejo XO Nicaragua. That release will be added to a line that already includes Añejo XO (Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper), Añejo XO Connecticut

“The new Añejo XO Nicaragua is a special blend that has been in development for quite some time because, as usual, we wanted to ensure that we had the perfect combination of unique and exclusive, aged premium tobaccos that would make this Nicaragua blend truly stand out,” said Royal Agio Cigars CEO Boris Wintermans in a press release.

“Our curious approach to blending has once again led us to an exceptional, one-of-akind discovery sure to delight cigar lovers everywhere.”

Balmoral Añejo XO is available in vitolas: Torpedo Mk52 (6 1/4 x 52), Gran Toro (6 x 52), Rothschild Masivo (5 x 55), Corona (5 7/8 x 42) and Petit Robusto FT (4 1/4 x 48).

They range in price from $8.50 to $11.25.

The Tabernacle Midnight in Jalisco cocktail We wanted to bring something new to the Perfect Pairings for this Mexico issue, so we got in touch with Andi Cruzatti, the GM at The Corner, a Miami bar known for — among other things — its inventive cocktails and asked her to come up with something Mexican-inspired that we would pair with a cigar. Andi came through with this sweet, low-ABV twist on the Fernet and Coke.

HOW IT’S DONE Before making the cocktail, you’ll need to spend a little time at your stove. That’s because the recipe calls for a syrup made by reducing Mexican Coca-Cola, which will yield a sweet syrup since Mexican Coke is made with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. This stuff will keep for quite a while, so consider making more than you’ll use in one sitting. Or invite a bunch of friends over to try out the drink.

Once you’ve got your syrup made (Andi adds brandied cherries to hers, but you don’t have to go that far), you’ll add all these ingredients to a shaker: •

3/4 oz. Fernet-Branca

•

1/4 oz. Amaro-Vallet

•

1/4 oz. Cynar 70-proof

•

1 oz. fresh lemon juice

•

2 oz. Mexican Coca-Cola reduction

Add ice, shake well, then pour into a rocks glass through a strainer and add a few new ice cubes to the glass.

THE PAIRING We showed up at The Corner with several cigar options to taste alongside this cocktail. There’s a lot going on here. The Fernet brings a bitterness that makes the Midnight in Jalisco crisp, but then there’s that heavy, syrupy sweetness that comes from the Mexican Coke reduction and (in the case of Andi’s reduction) brandied cherries. What’s more, the syrup makes it so these flavors — especially the sweetness — all linger on your palate and build sip after sip. To say this has “a long finish” is underselling it.

All of which means we needed a cigar that was big and creamy enough to stand up to the sheer texture of the cocktail, peppery enough to offset the sweetness, and chocolatey enough to complement the bitter and cherry sweet notes. We found all that in The Tabernacle by Nicholas Melillo’s Foundation Cigar Co.; its Broadleaf wrapper and Mexican binder bring the peppery sweetness we were looking for while its leather and wood finish lasts long enough to mingle with the cocktail’s Coke reduction.

COCKTAIL BY: Andi Cruzatti

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LOCATION: The Corner (thecornermiami.com)

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“MEZCAL” REFERS TO BOTH THE BROAD CATEGORY OF MEXICAN SPIRIT MADE FROM THE AGAVE PLANT (WHICH INCLUDES TEQUILA) AND A SUB-TYPE OF MEZCAL. WE’LL EITHER CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION OR GET YOU TO A STATE WHERE YOU DON’T CARE WHAT YOU’RE DRINKING AS LONG AS IT’S GOOD!

DEL MAGUEY SINGLE VILLAGE MEZCAL - TOBALA

OAXACA

45% ALC. BY VOL. AGAVE TOBALÁ A MEZCAL

BY ANY OTHER NAME According to the internationally recognized Appellation of Origin, mezcal is the umbrella category for all Mexican distilled spirits made

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from the agave plant, also known as the maguey [pronounced mah-GAY]. Tequila, which is by far the most popular and commercially available subcategory of mezcal, is made exclusively from the blue agave varietal and must come from one of five Mexican states, the most prominent of which is Jalisco, where the city of Tequila is located. That’s what it takes for a spirit to be labeled tequila. It’s the main character in many a sappy country song, lovestruck poem, battle cry, and slurred wedding speech. But this isn’t a tequila story; we’re here to drink mezcal, as in the subcategory of mezcal. I know you’re still confused but we’re about to turn that corner of mezcal enlightenment. Stay with me.

the product dictates the yield, flavor and aroma characteristics, processing difficulty, and eventually the product’s price. In the world of mezcals, Espadín agave [pronounced es-paDEEN] is the most widely planted and highest yielding and, as a result, the most commonly used agave varietal in mezcal. Wild agaves, like the Tobalá [pronounced toba-lah] employed in the Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal Tobala (delmaguey.com) have yields so low that it takes eight Tobalá hearts to match the yield of one Espadín heart. But the flavor it produces in this superbly executed mezcal is decidedly singular.

For a spirit to be legally labeled mezcal, it can be distilled from any agave varietal — as opposed to just blue agave — and it has to come from one of six Mexican states. The overwhelming majority of mezcal is produced in Oaxaca [pronounced wa-HA-kah].

The nose on the Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal Tobala is world-class, with a combination of caramel, fruit, chlorophyll, wood, and peat smoke. The flavors are impeccably balanced.

They are at once intense and delicate with a profile of mango, green apple, baker’s spice, and a bit of mint with a beautifully long, resinous finish.

Perhaps the most important difference between tequila and mezcal is in the way that it is made. For tequila, the majority of producers take the harvested blue agave hearts or piñas and stuff them into autoclaves (high pressure steam ovens) or kilns where they are cooked to convert the plant’s fibrous starches into sugars over a few hours. For mezcal, on the other hand, the process is typically more artisanal and labor intensive. Every producer has their own family method and technique, but generally speaking, the halved agave hearts are roasted in stone-lined earthen pits using aromatic firewood as the heat source. This pile of hot, smoking agave hearts is covered with a combination of tarps and earth to prevent the smoke from escaping. The hearts are then smoked for several days with the goal of not only converting starch to sugar, but also to impart a smoky characteristic to the cooked agave. This smokiness adds a complexity of flavor and aroma to the final product that is one of the most significant and distinguishable flavor differences between the sister spirits. And for our purposes, that smokiness makes mezcal a more suitable pairing partner for cigars!

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE As is the case with most if not all agricultural luxury products, selecting the plant varietal for

TASTING NOTES

Padrón 1964 Anniversary Series Maduro

PAIRING NOTES I PAIRED THIS MEZCAL WITH A PADRÓN ANNIVERSARY SERIES 1964 BECAUSE ONCE I TASTED THEM TOGETHER THERE WAS NO CHOICE; EVERY SIP OF THE MEZCAL THAT WAS FOLLOWED BY THE PADRÓN RESULTED IN A DESSERTLIKE BLAST OF COCOA POWDER FROM THE CIGAR THAT WAS SIMPLY SUBLIME. IN EXCHANGE, THE CIGAR SEEMED TO INTENSIFY THE GREEN APPLE AND MANGO FLAVORS IN THE MEZCAL, BRINGING THEM TO THE FOREFRONT IN AN UNDENIABLY DELICIOUS WAY. IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE A BETTER PAIRING OF A CIGAR AND SPIRIT.

MEZCAL XICARU REPOSADO OAXACA

porate world of machine-driven industrial processes and economies of scale. That’s not to say that there aren’t any artisanal tequilas in the marketplace. There most certainly are, but the majority of tequila on the shelves and in your cocktails is of the industrial variety. Conversely, in the world of mezcal, the overwhelming majority of producers are still artisanal. In other words, they’re still cooking the agave hearts over multiple days in earthen pits, still crushing the cooked agave using the painstakingly slow horse-drawn tahona wheel, and still distilling in small batches. It’s not uncommon to find the batch number or bottle number handwritten on bottles, not as a marketing gimmick but as a simple way of keeping track of their bottles.

While tequila was out conquering the world, the tiny mezcal operations or palenques in these rural villages kept producing mezcal in the most traditional way. The methods and techniques being used, which are passed down from generation to generation, typically have the singular goal of making the best mezcal that they can possibly make. And by “best” I mean what that maestro mezcalero considers to be the best.

After all, that is what he and his village neighbors will all be drinking. These rural villages don’t have a Total Wine & More; they’re drinking what the local palenque produces.

The beauty of it is that you can sit in a bar on Main Street USA and drink an artisanal mezcal like Xicaru Reposado, which was produced under the watchful eye of master mezcalero Fernando Santibañez, and taste the results of his generations-old family method. It is a very real experience. It is quite a different thing than tasting a product that was pumped out in industrial quantities through a network of pipes and tanks and automated bottling lines in order to meet a certain figure.

TO AGE OR NOT TO AGE

40% ALC. BY VOL. AGAVE ESPADÍN INDUSTRIAL VS ARTISANAL While tequila’s global popularity was growing, its artisanal roots quickly gave way to the cor-

In the most traditional sense, mezcal is enjoyed young or joven, bottled right out of the distillation process. The young version of the spirit is fresh, vibrant, and alive. Like smoking a cigar right off the rolling table, there are cigars that I like so much that I will just about chain smoke them when I am at the factory, but in turn would never pick up from a walk-in humidor in the States. I feel the same about some young mezcals.

from a little time in the barrel. For the sake of clarification, a mezcal that is reposado or rested is the same exact product that went into the bottle joven. It’s just that a certain amount of it was bottled as joven and a certain amount was pumped into barrels for aging. According to the regulations governing mezcal, you can label your mezcal reposado if it has aged in a barrel for at least two months. If you leave it in the barrel for at least twelve months, you can label your product añejo or aged. In both cases, reposado and añejo, the producer is generally looking to gain flavor and aroma characteristics from the barrel and in some cases they want time to smooth out hard edges.

TASTING NOTES The Mezcal Xicaru Reposado is a perfect example of a mezcal that gained another dimension in the barrel. Just nosing it for a moment tells you everything you need to know; there are notes of vanilla and oak blended with that vegetal, green aroma of a traditional mezcal. On the palate the Xicaru is creamy and balanced with subtle vanilla over a base of spice, smoke, minerality, and grass.

Herrera Esteli Norteño

PAIRING NOTES THE HERRERA ESTELI NORTEÑO ON ITS OWN IS ALL ABOUT COCOA, EARTH, AND A TOUCH OF PEPPER. IF YOU HAVE AN ADVANCED PALATE YOU CAN PICK UP EVEN MORE FLAVORS AND AROMAS OR YOU CAN TAKE A SIP OF XICARU REPOSADO AND LET IT SHOW YOU THE WAY. AFTER A SIP, THE CIGAR’S PREVIOUSLY SUBTLE TOASTED ALMOND CRANKS UP, BAKER’S SPICES SHOW UP, AND THE COCOA TURNS INTO FULL-ON MILK CHOCOLATE. ALL OF THIS WHILE THE MEZCAL’S VANILLA AND HONEY TAKE A FORCEFUL STEP TO THE FOREFRONT.

Then there are the mezcals that really benefit

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CASAMIGOS MEZCAL JOVEN

OAXACA

producer, Bacardi, to enter into a distribution agreement with Casa AGP, makers of Zignum Mezcal, Mezcal El Recuerdo de Oaxaca, and Mezcal El Señorio in 2013. At the time, the move made Bacardi the first global spirits company to have a complete mezcal portfolio. The investment floodgates opened soon after and players like William Grant & Sons, Diageo, and Proximo Spirits all joined the party. In mid-2017 global wine and spirits giant Pernod-Ricard announced that they would be taking a majority stake in Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal, one of the leading premium, artisanal mezcal producers. A month later news and social media networks were abuzz with the announcement of Diageo’s acquisition of Casamigos in a deal that could be worth up to $1 billion. Casamigos, of course, is known for being George Clooney, Rande Gerber, and Mike Meldman’s little tequila project turned global sensation. In 2018, well after the Diageo acquisition, the company added their first mezcal to the portfolio, a joven mezcal made of 100 percent Espadín agave in Oaxaca.

in the film, on the day that his estranged wife returns to rekindle their relationship alongside Geoffrey’s younger half-brother. Spoiler alert: it all goes spectacularly sideways in ways that are sad, predictable, at times comical, but as is the case in all tragedies, absolutely inevitable. The prose is swollen with Faustian and biblical symbolism as well as numerology but all of it with so much drinking that I struggle to think of any other book that even comes close in that regard.

Throughout the story, mezcal plays such a profound role that some have argued that the book has at least in small part been responsible for the spirit’s recent surge in popularity.

TASTING NOTES Casamigos Mezcal Joven is very much a beginner’s mezcal in that everything it has is toned down one or two clicks. So while it is unbelievably smooth and easy to drink, it lacks the intensity of flavor and smokiness that some seek in a mezcal joven. The flavors and aromas that it does have are extremely pleasant. On the nose you will find vegetal, fruit, and mineral notes while on the palate there are flavors of vanilla, lemon, subtle pepper, and sweet agave.

Balmoral Añejo XO Connecticut

Casamigos founders George Clooney & Rande Gerber

40% ALC. BY VOL. AGAVE ESPADÍN BIG BOYS GOING ALL IN The growth in popularity for mezcal in recent years hasn’t gone unnoticed as some of the biggest names in the liquor business continue to make significant mezcal investments. According to International Wine & Spirits Research, US volume of mezcal sales grew 279% in the years between 2005 and 2015. This growth spurred the world’s largest independent spirits

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PAIRING NOTES

UNDER THE VOLCANO George Clooney’s attraction to agave spirits isn’t the first time that mezcal and tequila have had their brush with stardom. In fact, Under The Volcano — Malcolm Lowry’s mezcal-soaked masterpiece about the utterly self-destructive final hours of a British consul living in Cuernavaca, Mexico — inspired the 1984 adaptation directed

by John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Moby Dick among others). The story depicts the tragic and inescapable demise of Geoffrey Firmin, played by Academy Award nominated Albert Finney (Big Fish, The Gathering Storm, and Erin Brockovich)

THE BALMORAL AÑEJO XO CONNECTICUT DELIVERS A MILD TO MEDIUM STRENGTH PROFILE OF WOOD, PEPPER, COFFEE, CREAM, AND SUBTLE NUTS BEFORE THE MEZCAL IS INTRODUCED. TAKE A SIP OF THE CASAMIGOS AND LET IT COAT YOUR PALATE BEFORE YOU SWALLOW IT. ON SUBSEQUENT PUFFS YOU’LL NOTICE THE PEPPER AND WOOD FROM THE CIGAR DIVE DEEP INTO THE BACKGROUND WHILE THE VANILLA AND NUT BECOME MUCH MORE PROMINENT THAN BEFORE.

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MONTELOBOS MEZCAL ARTESANAL ESPADÍN

OAXACA

like the old-time way of making cider if you’ve ever seen that, except that instead of apples, we’re mashing agave to extract the sugars that were produced during the roasting process. It is the job of the mezcaleros to constantly rearrange the agave chunks to ensure maximum extraction. Using a pitchfork, the mezcaleros transport the mashed agave fibers into open fermentation tanks where they add spring water and allow the wild yeast to begin the fermentation process.

in the tahona! And while I did have to Uber home from the office a couple of nights, not once did I feel the ill effects on the following day. Is this a good thing? I don’t know; without the deterrent of a terrible morning hanging over my head I may be more inclined to go the way of Geoffrey Firmin in Under The Volcano.

If you don’t get the reference, read the book or at least watch the movie. Suffice it to say it isn’t a good ending.

TASTING NOTES

In an industrial operation, this process is handled by machinery. The chopped agave chunks are fed onto a conveyor belt where it chops and mashes it before dumping it straight into a fermentation tank where they introduce a consistent and stable yeast strain. The process is extremely efficient; the downside from a romantic standpoint is that you lose the cultural and human element of the mezcal making process. From a practical standpoint, the industrial operation is seldom able to get the maximum extraction from the agave, which in turn affects flavor. Finally, from a sustainability perspective, industrial mezcal operations with their high-speed and high-efficiency processes present a risk of out-producing the supply of agave.

The tahona, a horse-drawn circular mill is used to mash agave.

HANGOVER? HORSE-DRAWN MASHING

WHAT HANGOVER?

No artisanal process would be complete without incorporating a horse-drawn something right? That’s where the tahona [pronounced ta-OWN-a] comes in. The tahona is a horsedrawn circular mill where a horse or donkey walks in circles around the mill rolling a wheellike stone that mashes and pulverizes the cooked agave chunks. The process is not un-

One of the biggest selling points for many artisanal mezcal enthusiasts is the clean nature of the spirit. The lack of impurities and chemicals in an artisanal mezcal make that next-day hangover a lot less likely than with many brown spirits. For example, in producing this 5 to Try section I probably consumed enough mezcal to kill the horse that was pushing the stone wheel

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Montecristo Epic

© Carlos Garrigos Saucedo / Shutterstock.com

43.2% ALC. BY VOL. AGAVE ESPADÍN

The Montelobos Mezcal Artesanal Espadín Joven is beautifully fragrant in the glass; there are prominent notes of cucumber, fruit, spice, and a hint of caramel in the background. In the mouth the mezcal is well balanced between sweet and hot characteristics. There are flavors of smoke, green agave, black pepper, minerality, and a touch of sugar cane sweetness.

PAIRING NOTES IF THERE WAS SUCH A THING AS A “CREAM BOMB” OF A PAIRING, THIS WOULD MOST CERTAINLY BE IT. THE CIGAR’S SMOOTH, SILKY TEXTURED SMOKE MAKES THE MEZCAL FEEL TWICE AS VISCOUS AS IT DOES ON ITS OWN. AND THE HEAT FROM THE MEZCAL, WHICH IS NOT TOO HIGH TO BEGIN WITH, LENDS THE CIGAR A KICK THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS MISSING. NOTES OF PEPPER, NUT, AND LEATHER JUMP TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE CIGAR WITH EVERY SIP WHILE THE MONTELOBOS TAKES ON A CREAMY CARAMEL UP FRONT THAT HAD BEEN LINGERING ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLY IN THE BACKGROUND. A PERFECTLY COMPLEMENTARY PAIRING.

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LUMINAR MEZCAL AÑEJO TASTING NOTES

in the bottle?” So there’s plenty on the subject of the worm. I’ve spoken to some Oaxaqueños who swear that you can’t get the full taste of the mezcal without eating the worm while most others claim that the worm was a marketing ploy devised in the 1950s to take advantage of young Americans’ one-upmanship.

The problem is that the mezcal with a worm in it is usually of a terribly low quality. So the brave American tourist would endure the shot of bad mezcal, eat the worm, squirm and gag, and everyone would have a good laugh. And, in a sense, it worked as a marketing gimmick; to this day people still associate mezcal with the creepy little gusano floating around in a bottle.

The Luminar Mezcal Añejo presents itself with a translucent straw color in the bottle.

There is little in the way of information coming from the label except the age, ABV, place of origin, and agave varietal. You may think, “What more do you want?” I like to know a little more about the processes employed in producing it as well as the maestro mezcalero who made it happen. On the nose this mezcal delivers notes of caramel and light spice. The palate has caramel, honey, and only a touch of heat but zero smokiness. The flavor is more reminiscent of an aged tequila than a mezcal.

© Marcos Castillo / Shutterstock.com

ZACATECAS

Mezcal with a worm, orange slices, and worm salt.

But since 2005, when the Mexican government began certifying mezcal for sale and export, the premium artisanal mezcals that have been making their way around the world have no worm in them. And I for one think it won’t be long until the old worm in the bottle trick is relegated strictly to tourist tchotchke status.

40% ALC. BY VOL. AGAVE: A. TEQUILANA WHAT, NO WORM? I know you’ve been thinking about it. You’ve been thinking, “When is he going to address the elephant in the room, or rather the worm

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One final note on the worm; the gusano is commonly eaten in Mexico in various forms.

You can have them fried, toasted, raw, or pickled on just about any street corner in Mexico. That is real and NOT a gimmick. The other thing that is not a gimmick and an excellent accompaniment to a good mezcal is sal de gusano or worm salt. In Oaxaca it is normal to be served a glass of mezcal accompanied by orange wedges covered in worm salt. How the salt is made varies from brand to brand but generally speaking it is composed of chilies, worms, and sea salt; unlike the lime and salt chaser used to mask the bite of tequila, the flavors of the orange and worm salt are meant to complement the mezcal’s fresh, smoky sweet flavors.

Espinosa Habano

PAIRING NOTES TH I S PAI RI NG B ROUG HT OUT TH E B E ST I N BOTH PRODUCTS. TH E M E ZCAL’S CARAM E L AN D VAN I LLA WE RE RAM PE D U P TO DE S S E RT-LI KE LEVE LS, WH IC H WE RE BALANC E D BY TH E C IGAR’S EARTH AN D PE PPE R CORE. TH E E S PI NOSA HABANO’S PE PPE R Z I NG COM I NG FROM TH E FI LLE R WAS S IG N I FICANTLY TON E D DOWN BY TH E S PI RIT ALLOWI NG TH E WRAPPE R’S C REAMY, LEATH E R C HARACTE R TO S HOW TH ROUG H.

EDITOR’S NOTE WE PARTNERED WITH TOTAL WINE & MORE (TOTALWINE.COM) TO PUT THIS FEATURE TOGETHER AND PABLO ESTADES WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN MAKING IT HAPPEN. THANKS, PABLO.

Discover PASO DOBLE, a dance of flavors blended in perfect unison.

SERIE SIGNATURAS PASO DOBLE was born of a collaboration between two world-renowned cigar makers known for their ambitious desires to define, in their own unique way, what it means to be boutique.

Litto Gomez and Boris Wintermans share a similar passion for developing inspiring, one-of-a-kind blends, and each has their own method for getting there. Litto incorporates specially-grown tobaccos from his personal farm in La Canela, Dominican Republic, while Boris relentlessly searches the globe for the most unique premium tobaccos.

PASO DOBLE combines each cigar makers’ dearest tobaccos and intertwines them into a distinct dance of flavors that stays true to each cigar maker’s signature blending style – the dark, full-bodied opulence of Litto Gomez’ La Flor Dominicana and the sophisticated, balanced complexity of Boris Wintermans’ Balmoral cigars.

BALMORALCIGARS.COM

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TAKING IN ONE OF THE AMERICAS’ CULTURAL CAPITALS IN UNDER 72 HOURS

BY NICOLÁS ANTONIO JIMÉNEZ / PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDY ASTENCIO

radiating from the center of Mexico City.

exico’s in the news a lot these days in the U.S., but not usually for reasons or in contexts that would entice you to vacation there.

Whether it’s drug cartel violence, migrant caravans or border walls, the United States’ neighbor to the south doesn’t get much good press. That’s undoubtedly part of the reason why the reactions I got from friends, family, and even others at Cigar Snob in the lead-up to our trip to Mexico City were so different from what we heard going into flights to, say, D.C., Seattle or New Orleans. It was a mix of skepticism and concern — like we were planning on writing a story about a vacation in a war zone.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A stroll along Avenida Francisco Sosa in historic Coyoacán; fresh produce at El Mercado de Coyoacán; handmade Day of the Dead miniatures at one of the shops in Coyoacán’s main market

It’s true that there are dangers in Mexico that don’t exist — at least not on the same scale — in the United States. People in Mexico City who tell you the risks there are the same as in any major city in the world are overstating the safety at least a bit. But it’s also true that Mexico City, like any city, can be perfectly safe if you put a bit of thought into where you go and when. After all, besides being Mexico’s capital, this is one of the world’s cultural, business and culinary capitals. While American news media are hyperventilating and treating the entire country like it’s on fire, residents of Mexico City are going about their usual business.

After landing and taking an Uber to drop off our luggage at an Airbnb we rented in Polanco (more on that neighborhood later), Andy and I headed to Coyoacán [co-yo-ah-CAN], a municipality that brings together old-village charm, a world-class research university (National Autonomous University of Mexico, also known by its Spanish acronym, UNAM) and a slew of cultural institutions, museums and galleries. It served as the first capital of New Spain between 1521 and 1523, and though it was incorporated into the Federal District when the district was expanded in 1857, it has managed to retain its historic character — from the architecture to the cobblestones — despite all the urban sprawl

Mexico City is massive. With a population of nearly 9

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million in the city proper and a metro area population of about 21 million, it’s comparable to New York City in that any one neighborhood is a world unto itself.

So rather than spread ourselves too thin, art director Andy and I focused on just a few narrow areas of the city — and even that put us in the position of having bitten off more than we could chew.

COYOACÁN

We met my dad, who happened to be in Mexico City on business, for a late breakfast at Aurelia, an open-air café nestled into a corner of the courtyard at the Casa de Cultura Jesús Reyes Heroles, a sprawling estate that has been the home to various prominent Coyoacán families since 1780, when the land was also home to the owner’s small paper factory. By 1985, the Mexican government had acquired the property and designated it for use as one of the city’s casas culturales, or cultural houses. It’s home to art exhibitions, concerts, book readings, and musical recitals, among other events. If you’re a traveler on an off day, though, it’s worth a visit just for a picturesque and historic backdrop for breakfast.

The sprawling courtyard is beautifully landscaped and is loaded with sculptures. Plus, there was a security guard at the main entrance of the cultural house, so it’s a good way to ease into your time here if you’re still feeling skittish about the safety issue.

While I had anticipated that we’d need cash, I didn’t realize we’d need it so soon. As luck would have it, we’d arrived in Mexico City at the tail end of a technical glitch at one of the two companies in the entire country that processes card payments. Just days earlier, there had been lines blocks long for

TIP

While you don’t need to worry much about drug cartels and kidnapping in Mexico City so long as you’re being responsible and listening to advice, we did hear time and again that petty theft was an issue. Kick the habit of leaving your cell phone on the table through the whole meal and make sure any backpacks and other stuff are in a safe spot. We never felt like we were being targeted by pickpockets or anything, but we heard the warnings often enough that it seemed worth making the adjustments.

cash at banks. A freak thing, but still … a reminder that it’s best to have at least a little cash with you, even when you’re not in the sticks. Fortunately, a few hundred bucks goes a long way in Mexico, where a U.S. dollar is worth about 20 Mexican pesos.

TIP

Standard tips in Mexico’s restaurants are between 10 and 20 percent of the bill.

After our meal, we walked east along Avenida Francisco Sosa, past more art galleries, small restaurants and beautiful homes. It’s a bit like walking through Georgetown in D.C., except it all feels a little older and, of course, more Spanish-influenced. There’s cobblestone all over Coyoacán, so you’ll want to make sure you’re walking through here in comfortable shoes. After a few blocks, we hit the Jardín Centenario, a public park built to mark the hundredth anniversary of Mexican independence. It’s famous for the coyote fountain at the center of the garden; Coyoacán’s name comes from the Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) for “place of coyotes.”

The adjacent Plaza Hidalgo is yet another park space that’s supposed to be the second most visited plaza in the city after the Zócalo (we’ll get to that). There are sculptures and gardens and musicians and all the rest. And the plaza is located right in the heart of historic Coyoacán. But the presence that towers over the plaza is that of the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista, or Church of Saint John the Baptist. It figures, after all, that one of the most important Spanish colonial cities would be loaded with centuries-old churches. Construction here started in 1522 and lasted 30 years. The church was rebuilt in 1804 and remodeled twice in the 1900s. If you’re

into taking in and photographing old colonial structures — especially religious ones — this is a place you need to stop into.

Mexico City is known for being a world-class food town. One of the things that separates its dining scene from so many other cities’ is the wealth and breadth of ways you can dive into Mexican culture through its cuisine. At the more accessible end are the ample street food and markets, and Coyoacán has a market of its own that should be on your todo list. El Mercado de Coyoacán is one of the markets that actually feels like a “market” in the pure sense. Some others, like Mercado Roma, which we stopped through on our last day in town, come closer to resembling high-end food halls. But this one has everything from produce to butchers to lunch counters, all packed tightly into a large warehouse

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Coyoacán is littered with statues of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, like this one at Casa de Cultura Jesús Reyes Heroles; Iglesia de San Juan Bautista at Plaza Hidalgo

that covers a square block of the historic district.

These places are great for large groups, especially if you’re willing to take your time eating your way through one shared dish at a time. You’ll find places that specialize in quesadillas, oysters, octopus, juices, salads … and that’s just the food inside. Right outside the walls of the warehouse, there are street vendors selling everything from tacos to grilled corn and fresh fruit. Both inside and outside, there are other shops here that make this a great place to buy gifts for anybody to whom you don’t want to return empty-handed back home. I stopped into a shop where the owner was making clay Day of the Dead figures by hand and got my goddaughter one depicting a skeleton shrink taking notes about his skeleton patient lying on a couch.

We walked south through some of the residential portions of Coyoacán to take in more of the architecture and pop into shops and galleries. The idea had been to stop into the Frida Kahlo Museum, which is at the house where the iconic painter and her artist husband Diego Rivera called home from 1929 to 1954. It’s a bright blue building, and as you walk through, you encounter a number of their artworks, personal effects and art collection. At least that’s what we would have seen if the line to get in hadn’t been so insanely long. A queue of Frida pilgrims wrapped around the block in one direction and stretched several doors down in the other. We passed on that whole thing primarily because of time constraints, but truth be told, I was all too happy to have found a practical excuse to keep my money

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from any institution related to these two communist icons (Kahlo once went so far as to decorate one of her corsets with a hammer and sickle). We did, however, include the Parque Frida Kahlo in our stroll through Coyoacán, and that was plenty for me in terms of the Frida experience. That said, if you’re a bigger Frida fan than I am, you might consider making it out early for this museum to avoid the lines.

We stopped into a restaurant called Amarcord for some afternoon cocktails. Andy and I both ordered Mezcalinas, which are made with mezcal, simple syrup and fruit juice; his was tamarind and mine was mango. It’s pretty much a Mexican Daiquiri, but on the rocks. Once lubricated, we made our way back up north for an early (for us) dinner at La Santa Gula, a Maltese restaurant with a surprising amount of character per square foot. That’s owed largely to the larger-than-life character who is the flamboyant owner of this place. My dad had insisted we pay La Santa Gula a visit for this purpose, and the guy came through in a big way. At various points throughout the meal, this guy was bouncing from table to table, telling people in his heavily Italian-accented Spanish about his own Maltese origin story, insisting that people order dessert, and promising that this or that dish would be free if you didn’t like it. We went with the beef bolognese stuffed arancini, a roast beef sandwich, a timpana (Maltese meat pie) and some profiteroles that were on the house and which the owner just would not let us leave without accepting. The food and service were top notch, especially for a casual lunch café, and the personality behind it all made it exactly the sort of experience you want when you’re exploring a new place and trying to keep the mood elevated after a long travel day.

It was after this meal that we met with a guy who would be our companion for much of the rest of our trip. When I posted on Facebook soliciting

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recommendations from friends for our trip to Mexico City, one of them got in touch privately asking whether we were interested in hiring a driver during our stay. While I normally wouldn’t go for that sort of thing, it did seem like being in a foreign country with all the camera and interview recording gear we tend to lug around might be more comfortable if we had a driver we could trust with it as we popped in and out of places. As it turned out, our driver, whose name is Juan, spent about eight years with Mexico’s special forces. Juan Soldado (Juan Soldier), as we’ll refer to him from here on out, made our unusual style of travel a whole lot easier.

Juan drove us back to Polanco, where we made our first cigar stop of the trip at a place called Cigar Bar Delegados. The cigar bar is small, with room for maybe 20 people, and even then it feels a bit cramped. That’s actually part of the charm of this bar, though. It sits on the third floor overlooking one of Polanco’s more modern, trendy streets from above some restaurants and across from an apartment building. When you reach the third floor, you’re greeted by a red phone booth; obviously a little out of place, and the big “Cigar Bar Delegados” sign right next to it does a lot to soften the speakeasy effect, but still, it’s always fun to walk into a bar through a hidden door in a phone booth.

Juan’s not a cigar smoker, but after convincing him to leave the car and join us for drinks (which did a lot to set the tone for the rest of our time with him), we headed up, through the phone booth, and into the bar, where there’s a walk-in humidor almost as big as the bar area. The cigar selection was excellent, especially considering the size of the place and the fact that about half of the shelf space was taken by non-Cuban brands. There’s a good selection of Oliva, My Father, Drew Estate, and Rocky Patel to name just a few of the companies represented alongside

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Cigar Bar Delegados in Polanco is a terrace lounge with a red phone booth entrance; La Santa Gula, an open-air Maltese restaurant in Coyoacán; a timpana at La Santa Gula

Cuba’s Habanos products. The bar is also well appointed, with an excellent selection of mezcals, bourbons, Scotches, beers and wines.

Maybe the coolest thing about this bar, though, is the retractable roof. It’s a brilliant system consisting of a few slats that slide out from over the liquor shelves and across the whole seating area, so when the weather’s good, this becomes more of a rooftop patio.

After a couple of smokes and two rounds of drinks with Juan — during which he told us some of his war stories, which are very different from anything you’d hear from American veterans — he suggested we get a little drunk food. We weren’t quite there in terms of need for drunk food, but who needs to actually be drunk for that to be a good idea late at night? On Juan’s recommendation, we capped things off at La Casa de Toño, a chain of (mostly) 24-hour diners whose specialty is pozole, a corn-based Mexican

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along this road that Andy and I both found ourselves struck by how green this town is. I don’t mean that in the sustainable energy or environmentalist sense.

I don’t know much about that at all. I mean that it’s very literally green — and in a way that seemed so unusual for an urban center and even more so for a financial district. It’s one thing to have lots of parks, but there seem to be impressive trees and vines and gardens just about everywhere you look here.

At about the halfway point of that two-mile stretch, the long green space bubbles out into Parque América, where you’ll find, for some reason, statues of Rotary Club founder Paul Harris and Bolivian patriot Pedro Domingo Murillo. It’s also next to yet another iconic church, Parroquia San Agustín.

The Cubans and Cubaphiles among you might want to pop in here to check out the shrine to Our Lady of Charity, the patroness of Cuba, which has a Cuban flag hanging behind it.

stew with pork and other veggies. Whether you’re curing or evading a hangover, this seems like the right move. Though it is a chain, this is a local favorite and has even been written up by Bon Appetit. If you don’t think you have it in you to find a location, you should be able to order through Uber Eats, but going into one of the restaurants has the added benefit of putting you in a typical late-night hangout. It’s kind of like stopping at a Waffle House after a long night at the bars … except with stews and quesadillas.

POLANCO If our first day in Mexico City was heavy on colonial history and art, our second took a pendulum swing in the other direction toward Mexico City’s modern, cosmopolitan and luxurious side. Polanco is home to expensive real estate, high-end shopping reminiscent of Beverly Hills, and a high concentration of celebrated restaurants in the world, including several with Michelin stars and appearances on the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

The apartment we rented on Airbnb put home base a block from Cigar Bar Delegados, near the west end of Polanco, half a block from Avenida Presidente Masaryk, which is one of the neighborhood’s main arteries and along which you’ll find some of the most expensive real estate in the Americas. To get a sense of what I mean when I refer to the luxury in this area, consider that if you were to walk from this apartment to Avenida Presidente Masaryk and stroll just a few blocks east, you’d walk by stores like Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Gucci after passing the Aston Martin dealership right outside our door.

Of course, none of that was in our research budget for this trip. But we did have a perfect view of all those Aston Martins when we crossed the street in the morning and had huevos rancheros at Maque, which also has locations all over the city, but feels

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A walk along Avenida Horacio’s 2-mile pedestrian median park is loaded with an incredible combination of urban life and lush green spaces; outside the National Anthropology Museum

like an independent café. We sat outside at a table on the sidewalk. If you’re a people watcher, Polanco’s Maque is a great place to start your morning.

You’re a quick walk from main roads, but isolated enough that it’s not too overwhelming a place for a leisurely breakfast.

The fact that this area is known for high-end shopping doesn’t mean you need to break the bank to enjoy it. Filled up and caffeinated, we decided to explore some of Polanco’s public spaces. And there are tons of them. We lit a couple of cigars and started almost at the west end of Avenida Horacio, which runs east-west just north of Presidente Masaryk. It’s a two-mile stretch of lush park space situated between the two sides of the avenue. It was

Rather than continue the walk east, we turned south and hit Parque Lincoln (named for Abe), which features statues of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as an amphitheater and yet more gardens. Just a block farther south is the Jardín Winston Churchill. As you might have guessed, there’s a statue of Churchill at one of the corners of the park.

By now we’re on Avenida Paseo de la Reforma and we have time for one more thing before we head to lunch. To the south, we have the Bosque de Chapultepec (or Chapultepec forest), a 1,700acre city park that includes a zoo, museums, and monuments of all kinds, including one to Cuban national hero José Martí. But we opted to go north because we’d heard too many great things about the National Museum of Anthropology and we also knew it might be easier to speed through that self-guided tour than to wander aimlessly through a “forest” and make it to lunch on time.

The anthropology museum is every bit as impressive as we’d been told. And it’s something that you just can’t compare to any experience you’d have across

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ABOVE: Replicas of ancient Meso-American temples at the Museo Nacional de Antropología BELOW: One of the colossal Olmec heads in the anthropology museum’s collection

the Atlantic or anywhere north of Mexico. To have such a vast collection of artifacts from the area’s pre-Columbian civilizations — from the colossal Olmec heads to the Aztec Sun Stone, which is probably the most famous piece of Aztec sculpture — in one place makes the museum a rich, deep dive into a culture that we don’t tend to see in this kind of detail in the States.

For lunch, we took another kind of deep cultural dive, as we lucked out and were able to get ourselves a table on very short notice at Quintonil, which has the no. 24 spot on the most recent list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Pujol, just a short walk away, is no. 12; and, in fact, Pujol is one of the restaurants where Quintonil chef Jorge Vallejo cut his teeth as a chef. From the street, Quintonil is an unassuming place compared to the more imposing entrance at Pujol. And even when you sit down, the dining room doesn’t quite tell you that you’re in for a meal that you’ll remember for a lifetime. But that’s exactly what a lunch at Quintonil is — a love letter to Mexico and its native ingredients that’s as inventive as the chef who wrote it.

We met here with Alejandro Suárez, a tobacconist and cigar distributor in Mexico, and each of us went with the tasting menu, a nine-course journey through Mexican flavors unlike anything Andy or I had experienced before. There was the seared

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mamey with caviar, a nopal (prickly pear) ceviche, the massive deep-water grilled shrimp with a grasshopper marinade, the beef with pico de gallo, and bone marrow seasoned with cocopaches (a beetle that’s a regional delicacy). At the risk of sounding corny, each dish was its own revelation that also made you feel like you were better equipped to understand the rest of the food experiences you would have in Mexico. And while some of those ingredients might sound intimidating or off-putting, I’ll note that some of this stuff sounded alien to me and I was shocked at just how comfortable I found myself with all of it. The staff at Quintonil also did a stellar job of explaining not only the dishes and

how they were made, but their role in the story that Vallejo was telling about Mexico.

Should you plan a trip to Mexico, a meal at Quintonil should be high on your list of priorities, and you should absolutely not wait and hope you get as lucky as we did getting a table.

Andy and I rode in Alejandro’s car to our post-meal cigar at Casa Turrent, a Turrent-branded cigar bar back on Avenida Presidente Masaryk where practically the entire selection consists of Turrent products. While the selection is limited to one manufacturer, the Turrents make some fantastic cigars, and it would be a little weird to leave smoking them out of your Mexican cigar bar tour. What better place?

“Obviously it’s a different market here,” said Alejandro as we smoked our cigars and drank The Balvenie on the deck overlooking the street out front. “The Mexican market has been oriented toward Cuban cigars for a long time, but people are wanting to try new options. It’s interesting for us [as distributors] because we’ve been waiting for this for so many years. Obviously, the Mexican cigar industry is not as mature because we’re not a production powerhouse, but we have our own culture in tobacco and we’re proud of what we do. I think it’s going in the right direction.”

We were joined shortly thereafter by two other friends: Juan Soldado, who regaled us with more stories of his confrontations with gangs at Mexico’s southern border and his short stint in Colombia “hunting” members of the FARC; and Roberto Escobar, one of the actors in Amparo, the immersive

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Light up, sit back, and enjoy the spiritSEPT of/ OCTTrinidad.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Dishes on the tasting menu at Quintonil (steak with eggplant, pico de gallo, marrow and beetles; roasted cabbage with a creamed scallop; an avocado with a blackened chile crust); Casa Turrent

block away you’ll find the ruins of an ancient temple.

Not only has this site been the seat of Mexican government since the colonial days, but it was also the main ceremonial center in the Aztec City of Tenochtitlán, where the Mexica people ruled over the Aztec empire. theater production about Havana Club Rum that we’ve written about extensively here (“Cuban Spirit,” May/June 2019). Roberto was in town to shoot a Mexican TV drama called El Señor de los Cielos, in which he’s had a role for several seasons.

When it began to get dark, we parted ways with our friends and followed Juan Soldado to his car.

Because we had such limited time in Mexico, we hadn’t made plans to give a day to the historic center of the city, where some of the most recognizable landmarks are. But we wanted to make sure that we at least saw these places up close.

And that was our first real run-in with heavy traffic in Mexico City. The 5- or 6-mile trip from Casa Turrent to the historic district — specifically the Zócalo — took about 45 minutes. Which is to say that you should do everything you can to avoid hitting the road even within sniffing distance of rush hour during your time in Mexico City.

The Zócalo — whose formal but seldom used name is Plaza de la Constitución – is the city’s main square.

It’s an expansive square bordered by Mexico City’s Cathedral, the National Palace, the supreme court and other government buildings.

Maybe most interesting, though, is that less than a

50 | CIGAR SNOB | SEPT / OCT 2019

As we left the historic center of the city (unfortunately, we only had time for a brief stroll and some photos before it started to rain) Juan mentioned to us that the outskirts of this historic district sometimes become the stomping grounds of gangs looking to intimidate people and engage in some petty crime late at night. Another reminder that while it’s safe in most of the city, you don’t want to wander aimlessly through every part of town.

Use your head, and also use Uber rather than hailing cabs on the street to get around.

A friend in Coyoacán got in touch asking whether we were interested in drinks and a late meal, so we headed back to that colonial town and met her at Pepe Coyotes, a late-night diner specializing in heaping plates of flat-top grilled meats and cheese.

Really, it’s about that simple, but it was damned good. The signature “Pepe Coyotes” platter is steak, chorizo, pork chop, diced ham, bacon, onion and cheese … served with tortillas just to make sure you hit all the major food groups. You can also get tacos al pastor here, and they let you know with the rotating al pastor pork cooking right at the window against the sidewalk.

Juan Soldado (stuffed from having ordered the Coyote Hambriento or “Hungry Coyote”) dropped

us back off at the apartment, and we rested up.

Tomorrow, a half day, would start with a totally different experience that got a laugh from just about every Mexican with whom we shared our plans.

LA CENTRAL DE ABASTOS AND ROMA Our last morning in Mexico City started with some packing, as we weren’t going to have much time to get back to the apartment before our check-out time. When Juan Soldado arrived to pick us up, he looked at us more than a little puzzled.

“Are we still doing this?” he asked.

Throughout the trip, we’d gotten similar skepticism and surprise whenever we mentioned that we planned to spend time at La Central de Abastos.

It’s Mexico City’s largest wholesale market. In fact, it’s the largest such market in the world, with more than 30,000 tons of merchandise — primarily foodstuffs — passing through the 810-acre market every day. It’s a sprawling network of enormous warehouses where vendors sell everything from fresh produce to seafood to dried peppers to paper plates, and the sheer pace that it takes to keep a place like this moving and productive — especially when so little is automated — is dizzying.

Mind you, we found it to be dizzying despite our having arrived close to noon — well after the time when the buzz in the market is at its peak. Since so much of the purchasing here is done by smaller markets, restaurateurs and other businesses that have to be ready for their own customers at normal business hours, La Central de Abastos really starts to get going before dawn. But if you show up later on in the day like we did, it’s a playground for any foodie who also loves a good deal and wants to be able to get to know how the city eats; about 80 percent

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: La Central de Abastos in Itzapalapa, the largest market of its kind in the world; Cigar Point on the third floor of Mercado Roma; mountains of dried peppers at La Central de Abastos

of the food consumed in Mexico City is sold here.

I didn’t go too nuts, but I did pick up about three quarters of a pound of a variety of dried peppers for a buck and change.

At most hallway intersections, La Central has small lunch counter-style restaurants where you can get tacos, quesadillas, sausages, and all kinds of other stuff. The outside of the seafood portion of the market is even more welcoming to diners, with fullfledged open-air restaurants offering some of the freshest seafood you’ll find anywhere in this inland city. We had chicken quesadillas and were blown away by the quality of food we were getting for the price. Not only were they cheap (we paid less than $5 USD for two quesadillas and two tacos, all of which we split with Juan Soldado), but they were also delicious, probably because this tiny restaurant has bargain access to all the ingredients they can imagine using within walking distance.

Some important things to keep in mind if this sounds like a good time to you: This is not a tourist attraction and they’re not used to foreigners here, so you shouldn’t assume that you’ll be able to get by without speaking Spanish. In fact, it’s really easy to get lost in this place — so you shouldn’t assume you’ll be able to get out without speaking Spanish.

Security was really weird about our cameras.

52 | CIGAR SNOB | SEPT / OCT 2019

To be honest, we pretty much disregarded requests to stop taking pictures, but you should know that if you’re seen taking a lot of video and photo with more than a cell phone, there’s a chance someone will ask you to stop.

La Central is a massive facility and its importance to the city’s economy means that security is pretty good here. We never felt unsafe.

But it is located in Itzapalapa, one of Mexico City’s roughest neighborhoods. In some years, about one in every five Mexico City murders was committed in Itzapalapa. So take an Uber here, make sure you have a fluent Spanish speaker in your group, and don’t stick around the neighborhood for no reason when you’re done at La Central.

TIP

Lots of things at La Central de Abastos are only sold in bulk quantities. Pack a light duffel bag to bring your peppers back home.

Our last stop before our flight back out of Mexico City was, naturally, a cigar bar. Cigar Point, where Alejandro Suárez is a partner, is located on the third floor of Mercado Roma, the main market in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, just to Polanco’s southeast.

Mercado Roma functions more like a modern food hall than a farmer’s market, with restaurants and coffee bars packing the floor. That makes it a great place to eat lunch just before or after your cigar.

Alternatively, you can order food from the cigar bar and have it brought to you, which is what we did when we had a handful of small tacos with our cigars and mezcal.

Cigar Point might be the coolest cigar bar in Mexico City. The high ceilings, large open-air deck area and artwork (some paintings depicting Jack Nicholson, photography from Cuba and other pieces) make the bar one of the establishments that are helping make cigars cool in Mexico City among young professionals who don’t want a herf to mean they miss out on a night at a hip bar. The spirits selection is also impressive. We sampled a few mezcals just to make sure we’d experienced all the variety our bodies could handle before our flight. The cigar selection closely resembled what we found at Cigar Bar Delegados — which figures since so much of the inventory is distributed by Alejandro’s company.

And so ended our quick romp through Mexico City.

If you’ve never been to Mexico outside of beaches and resort towns, it’s a city that will challenge your assumptions about what life in Mexico looks like. It’s loaded with culture, beauty, and flavors that help set the tone and define the character of a hemisphere. Even within the neighborhoods we explored, we were barely able to scratch the surface (for instance, we never touched Polanco’s plethora of Argentine steakhouses or most of Mexico City’s nightlife). But we did come back home with a new perspective, a long to-do list for our next trip, and a bag full of peppers.

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WITH Nirka Reyes has become the face of De Ls Reyes Cigars, matured as a leader in the industry, and earned the respect of her peers. She sat down with us to talk about new brands, her family’s love for hospitality, and her father’s foodie legacy.

INTERVIEW BY ERIK CALVIÑO

Sagas are that; they’re stories that people tell generation after generation.

And that was another connection for me to name it that way. There’s many people in the industry and there’s been many old families making cigars, but in the Dominican Republic none of them has continuously been in the tobacco industry for six generations. So that’s how Saga came up.

It has four different lines. The Saga Golden Age, which is a Dominican puro; Saga Blend No. 7, that is kind of our tribute to Cuban seeds grown in different parts of the world and it has Brazil, Nicaragua Honduras and Dominican Republic all in one blend; and then the Saga Short Tales, which is the collection packaged in books. A lot of people have been talking about those. It’s a collection of books because we kind of figured that nowadays smokers are way more interested in knowing about the cigars that they’re smoking, about the story behind them. So we make a collection of books and each of them is a different story, a different blend, a different size. And it’s been picking up very well. Last but not least, the Saga Solaz, which we’re smoking right now.

The books are great. We have them at our office and every time someone walks by, they’re like, “What is this?” We love it. It’s such a unique presentation.

So tell us about the Solaz. I’m smoking it now for the first time. What is the story with this blend?

Well, first of all, “solaz” is a word in Spanish that means that recreation, the leisure time after work. So it’s that time after you’re done with your job and you want to enjoy something relaxing.

We wanted to make our first mild-to-medium cigar because everything that we’ve done in the past is from medium up. So this is our first mild-to-medium cigar. It has an Ecuadorian wrapper and then everything else is from the Dominican Republic, from my family fields. Even though we went milder on these than our other cigars, we wanted to maintain the full flavor and the complexity going on because the market already has so many very balanced, very continuously mild cigars that people go for. And we wanted to make something different to have flavor but without the spiciness. That’s why we came up with the Solaz. Also, it has a very smooth draw. We went a little bit below the standard on the Drawmaster just to make it an easygoing cigar to go with the name Solaz.

So an easygoing smoke to sort of end your day.

Also it comes in three different formats: a Robusto, a Churchill and a Toro Gordo, which is a 6 x 58.

Oh yeah. This is kind of an ideal cigar for golfing because it’s so easygoing and low in strength, so it doesn’t give you a buzz. Really well done. How is Saga doing in the U.S. market? I know you guys do a lot internationally. In the U.S. market, on the other hand, there’s places that I go that I don’t see Saga. And then there’s places where it’s everywhere.

PHOTO: Michy Watchao

Well, the thing about our company is that we don’t make cigars as a business.

I know people are gonna say, “Oh yeah, whatever.” But we do it because we’re passionate about it and we want to bring joy to the people who really like cigars and the way that we’ve been doing it is that we’ve been doing everything personal.

Before we get to the products that you’re releasing this year, can you give us a little bit of context around Saga, your position in it and where the company is nowadays?

We don’t have that many sales reps. We’ve been handling everything with Jean Michel, who’s the other Saga ambassador. He’s the one traveling to stores and visiting them. Most of the sales come because someone tried our cigars, then they kind of convinced the shop owners to buy it. And that’s been the way for us.

Yes, of course. The company name is De Los Reyes Cigars. It is a company that I basically inherited in life from my father and I’ve been running it for the past eight years. I did work with my father on a previous project that is called Don Julio.

Saga was kind of like my baby. And the reason that I named the brand Saga is because what made me fall in love with this industry are the stories people tell.

Now I understand because the name’s getting out there and a lot of people are saying, “I don’t find it anywhere.” We’re in the process of hiring reps. We have one in Texas right now. And also getting distributors or brokers. For example, in California, we just started with GMG and we’re starting to get out there to have a more complex structure to actually supply the smokers

56 | CIGAR SNOB | SEPT / OCT 2019

that want to have our cigars.

Shifting gears, let’s talk about the other Saga, the restaurant. I think everyone who goes to ProCigar (the Dominican Republic’s cigar festival) and everyone that goes to Santiago knows about. But that’s a very small percentage of U.S. cigar smokers. And so just touch on that restaurant because I think it’s such a unique part of the Saga family of offerings.

Before this interview, you gave me Saga coffee and you gave me Saga cookies.

It’s not normal, not common for me to walk into one of these and get handed artisanal cookies that are so delicious. So tell us first about what’s up with the cookies and the coffee and then tell me about the restaurant.

I inherited that from my father. We’re a very welcoming family. We want everyone to feel at home. So everyone who visits us at ProCigar, they get to go to our fields. And in the fields we have kind of like what we call a hangover table.

And there we serve coffee — freshly brewed ...

I’ve never been at that table.

No you haven’t. No. No. And they make their coffee old style and we have cookies with the coffee. So we said, you know, “Not everyone gets a chance to come to the Dominican Republic. Why don’t we bring a little bit of that here?”

And that’s all we did.

I love it. Is there any concept of doing events, say in the U.S., and bringing a little bit of that with you? I think that’s such a different twist.

I know. It is part of our plan because it is something that distinguishes us.

The attention to detail. And that’s something that, because I think we’re on the smaller scale size of a company, we’re able to do and still connect with people and be welcoming.

When I had to handle my first ProCigar festival, I was like, “Oh my God, how are we going to get all these people to come if maybe they don’t know that much about the company?” That was the first year. The second year, people started talking about our tour because of the hospitality piece of it. And now I have to closeit because I have too many people on my tour.

The first time I went to the tour with you guys, I left with a coffee mug with my name on it. Whether by design or just because of the nature of the way you guys are, it’s become your brand identity to be so hospitable.

I do want to talk about the restaurant because whoever goes to Santiago, DR has to go to Saga.

Well, what happened is that my dad was always kind of upset. “Where am I going to take people who come visit me that I can smoke easily after dinner and that every cigar smoker can come?” And he’s always been a foodie. My Dad’s like a big time foodie and he loves spirits and he loves wine. And he said, “You know, I’m gonna make it.” Just so you know, the name of the restaurant is not Saga. If you ask him, it’s Sabores Gastronómicos, but no one knows it that way.

I didn’t even know that. He’s so funny. He threatens me with food. Like, “If you come, you know, we may run out of the Tomahawk that night.”

I have my dad to thank for teaching us how to always be so welcoming. And it was his way to leave kind of a legacy to the industry because it’s not only us who use that restaurant. Every single Dominican manufacturer goes there.

You’ll go on a Wednesday and you’ll see Litto drinking his rum over there. And then you’re going to see maybe Manolo in another table or Carlito picking dinner up. It’s full of the manufacturers all the time.

Listen to the full interview on the Cigar Snob Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts or at cigarsnobmag.com/podcast

SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

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48 cigars TUBE: Brizard and Co. Single Cigar Tube- Zebrawood (brizardandco.com) LIGHTER: Brizard and Co. Nano Lighter- Zebrawood (brizardandco.com) LIQUEUR: 1921 Crema de Tequila Clasica (tequila1921.com) SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

75

PERFECTO Casa Fernandez Miami Aniversario

92

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A long, pressed figurado covered with a flavorful, even-colored wrapper. Produces an abundant output of thick, highly aromatic smoke with a profile of sweet cedar, almond cream, cinnamon, subtle spice, and a touch of cocoa.

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Pinolero by AJ Fernandez

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Figurado 5 3/4 54 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

Kristoff 685 Woodlawn

N I CA R AG UA Ultra-flavorful and complex with a profile of cedar, coffee, nuts, and leather accompanied by a smooth pepper background throughout. This good-looking perfecto produces an excellent smoke output leaving behind a solid, white ash.

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Crux Epicure Short Salomone

89

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C Covered with a hearty and flavorful, reddish brown wrapper showing some spots and streaks. Produces a core of wood, roasted nuts, and red pepper accompanied by notes of chocolate and cream throughout a long finish.

$ 12.99 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Perfecto 6 54 Ecuador Nicaragua Nicaragua

Alec Bradley Mundial

N I CA R AG UA An attractive figurado covered with a supple, light brown wrapper with minimal veins. Delivers a medium strength core of nuts, earth, and spice complemented by subtle hints of wood and coffee. Provides an open draw with an excellent smoke output.

$ 11.40

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N I CA R AG UA

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

PL No. 6 6 54 Honduras Nicaragua & Honduras Nicaragua & Honduras

H O N D UR AS A consistently well-constructed figurado with a round head and tapered foot. Excellent draw and burn with slightly muted flavors of wood, coffee, spice, and cocoa accompanied by a hint of sour apple in the finish.

SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

77

TORO Illusione Cigares Prívé

$ 8.55

93

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Prensado Suave 5 1/2 56 Mexico Nicaragua Nicaragua

Aging Room Bin No. 2 Nicaragua

92

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

C Major 5 3/4 54 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Gran Toro 6 1/4 54 Ecuador Ecuador Brazil & Dominican Republic

Toro 6 52 Honduras Honduras Honduras & Nicaragua

La Sirena Aniversario Especial

91

Firmly packed and finished with an attractive, dark, reddish brown wrapper with excellent oils. Medium-plus strength with a balanced core of cedar, milk chocolate, deep pepper, and tanned leather accompanied by a rich, creamy sweetness.

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C A thick, well-made toro covered with a dark brown wrapper with a toothy texture. This medium to full strength blend has a core of wood, dark chocolate, oats, and a hint of earth accompanied by a peppery sweetness throughout.

$ 12.00

H O N D UR AS Opens with a blast of pepper, earth, and chestnut accompanied by cocoa, leather, and a touch of coffee on the finish. This medium strength blend is beautifully box-pressed and covered with an impeccable, dark brown wrapper with good oils.

$ 19.00 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto Extra 5 3/4 54 Mexico Mexico Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

Alec Bradley Nica Puro

MEXICO An ultra-flavorful toro with a profile of bittersweet chocolate, intense espresso, and earth complemented by notes of baker’s spice and oak in the background. Consistently produces an excellent smoke output along a flawless draw and burn.

$ 8.50

90 78 | CIGAR SNOB | SEPT / OCT 2019

N I CA R AG UA

$ 12.00

Rocky Patel Twentieth Anniversary Maduro

91

Beautifully balanced and complex, this blend draws and burns well while producing an abundant output of heavy, aromatic smoke with notes of cedar, nuts, and subtle pepper complemented by cream and a touch of cocoa.

$ 13.25

Balmoral Serie Signaturas Paso Doble

91

N I CA R AG UA

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 52 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

N I CA R AG UA Opens with an intense dose of red pepper and earth, which settles to incorporate notes of wood and leather. This medium-plus strength blend is covered with a dark, reddish brown wrapper with excellent oils.

TORO Fuente Fuente OpusX 20 Years

$ 30.56

D OM I NI CAN REPUBLIC Impeccably constructed and covered with a flawless, light brown wrapper with a supple feel. Delivers a core of cedar, cinnamon, ripe fruit, and pepper while leaving behind an impossibly tight, compact ash. Medium to full strength.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Believe 5 3/4 52 Dominican Republic Dominican Republic Dominican Republic

Cornelius and Anthony The Gent

$ 8.90

N I CA R AGUA Superb balance and complexity. This mediumplus strength blend delivers a buttery, smooth core of cedar, mixed nuts, and baker’s spice complemented by a rich caramel note throughout. This pressed cigar consistently draws and burns perfectly.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 50 Ecuador USA Nicaragua

A well-balanced combination of cream and spice highlighted by notes of cedar, cocoa, roasted almonds, and a touch of pepper. This medium strength toro is consistently well-made producing an abundant output of thick, aromatic smoke.

92 Trinidad Espiritu Series No. 1

$ 10.15

N I CA R AGUA

92

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 54 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

91 Sindicato Cubico

$ 8.75

N I CA R AGUA Beautifully constructed and covered with a good-looking, reddish brown wrapper with minimal veins. Medium bodied with a core of earth, baker’s spice, wood, and espresso complemented by a hint of cocoa.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 54 Ecuador Nicaragua Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

91 Aladino Corojo Reserva

$ 1 4.00

H O ND U R AS Delivers a powerful core of earth, cocoa powder, and pepper accompanied by notes of wood and leather on the finish. This full strength blend is covered with a clean, light brown wrapper with a toothy texture.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Topped with a neatly wound pigtail and finished with an exposed foot, this flavorful blend opens with a blast of wood, spice, and toast balanced by a coffee, creamy, caramel sweetness when the burn reaches the wrapper.

90

Casa Cuevas La Mandarria Edicion Limitada

$ 12.00

D OM I NI CAN REPUBLIC

Toro 6 52 Honduras Honduras Honduras

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 52 Ecuador Dominican Republic USA, Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

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79

TORO Sobremesa Crème Brulee

91

$ 13.45 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 52 Ecuador Mexico Nicaragua

Joya de Nicaragua Antaño CT

91

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 50 Ecuador Nicaragua Nicaragua

N I CA R AG UA Well balanced and deceptively powerful with a core of earth, smooth pepper, cedar, and nuts complemented by a rich, creamy vanilla note on the finish. Consistently well-constructed and covered with a golden colored wrapper with a velvet feel.

$ 11.25 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Vibrato 6 54 Ecuador Dominican Republic Dominican Republic

Aladino Connecticut

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C Beautifully box-pressed and covered with a soft, supple wrapper with a light brown hue.

Flavors of almond cream, cedar, soft spice, and coffee are complemented by notes of leather and cinnamon in the aroma.

$ 8.80

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Toro 6 50 Ecuador Honduras Honduras

Macaduno Inspirado Palladium

89

H O N D UR AS Producing an abundant smoke output of thick, aromatic smoke, this mild to medium bodied blend delivers a core of wood, earth, cocoa powder, and smooth spice complemented by a rich, creamy texture. Leaves behind a beautiful, white ash.

$ 8.99 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto 5 1/2 50 Ecuador USA/Connecticut Mexico, Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

PDR Capa Natural

H O N D UR AS A smooth and creamy blend with a core of wood, vanilla bean, nuts, and a touch of soft pepper. Covered with a clean, light brown wrapper, this mild to medium strength short toro draws perfectly and produces an excellent smoke output.

$ 6.4 3

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A flavorful blend with a balanced profile of wood, deep pepper, toasted almond, and a touch of earth delivered with a rich, buttery texture. Produces an abundant smoke output leaving behind a solid, compact ash. Medium strength.

$ 9.30

Aging Room Quattro Connecticut

90

N I CA R AG UA

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Toro 6 52 Ecuador Dominican Republic Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C Covered with a supple, light brown wrapper topped with a neat pigtail and finished with a covered foot. Provides an excellent draw and leaves behind a solid, compact ash. Flavors of wood, nuts, and a hint of cream accompanied by bitter coffee on the finish.

SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

81

ROBUSTO Espinosa Laranja Escuro

$ 10.50

92

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Robusto Grande 5 1/2 56 Brazil Nicaragua Nicaragua

Plasencia Alma del Fuego

91

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Candente 5 50 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto 5 52 USA/Connecticut Nicaragua Nicaragua

A beautifully constructed, soft-pressed robusto with a covered foot. The blend opens with a combination of sweet pepper and earth later joined by notes of dark chocolate, espresso, and cedar. Excellent smoke output leaving behind a compact ash.

H O N D UR AS Delivers a core of molasses, earth, and espresso complemented by subtle notes of leather and barnyard. Finished with a dark, toothy wrapper and topped with a round head. This medium strength blend consistently leaves behind a solid, compact ash.

$ 6.49 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto 5 50 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

La Galera Anemoi

H O N D UR AS Covered with a nearly flawless, dark brown wrapper with excellent oils, this medium strength blend has a smooth profile of coffee, light pepper, and bittersweet chocolate balanced by a touch of earth and wood.

$ 10.00

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Notus 5 56 USA/Connecticut Dominican Republic Dominican Republic

CAO Session

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C This thick robusto is consistently well-constructed and covered with a dark, toothy wrapper. Delivers a core of earth, charred oak, and light spice complemented by subtle note of dark chocolate in the background.

$ 8.59

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N I CA R AG UA

$ 7.50

Back2Back URNY Nicaragua

90

Dark chocolate, roasted almonds, and espresso flavors balanced by notes of oak, baker’s spice, and a hint of earth. This smooth and flavorful medium-plus strength blend is consistently well-made and covered with an evencolored, dark brown wrapper.

$ 15.00

Padilla Finest Hour Oscuro

91

N I CA R AG UA

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Garage 5 1/4 54 USA/Connecticut Dominican Republic Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C Firmly packed and covered with a dark, oily wrapper. Draws and burns exceptionally well leaving behind a tight, compact ash. Mild to medium strength with a profile of bittersweet chocolate, dark roast coffee, and earth complemented by a note of licorice.

ROBUSTO $ 9.99

N I CA R AGUA Beautifully constructed and finished with a neat triple cap. This well-balanced blend produces an excellent output of thick aromatic smoke with notes of roasted nuts, wood, coffee, and cocoa accompanied by a touch of leather. Medium-plus strength.

Southern Draw Ignite 2019 Navy Seals Foundation VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Private Blend #4 5 50 Honduras Nicaragua Honduras & Nicaragua

92 My Father La Promesa

$ 7.80

N I CA R AGUA A firmly packed and consistently well-constructed short robusto with a core of earth, chocolate, oak, and almond cream flavors complemented by a sugar cane sweetness and pepper zing on the finish. Medium to full strength.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Petit 4 1/2 50 Ecuador Nicaragua Nicaragua

91 Villa Zamorano Reserva

$ 5.50

H O ND U R AS Covered with a good-looking, medium brown wrapper with good oils, this robusto has a wellbalanced, medium strength profile of coffee, cocoa, baker’s spice, and cream with notes of wood and leather in the aroma.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto 5 50 Honduras Honduras Honduras & Nicaragua

91 Illusione Ultra

$ 10.75

H O ND U R AS Produced with a slight press and covered with an attractive, reddish brown wrapper with sheen. Delivers a profile of intense wood, coffee, and cocoa powder complemented by pepper and leather on the finish. Medium strength.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

OP. No. 4 4 3/4 48 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

90 Hit and Run Part Deux

$ 11.50

D OM I NI CAN REPUBLIC Delivers a flavorful core of cedar, red pepper, and black espresso followed by a touch of caramel sweetness on the finish. This medium strength blend is covered with a clean, evencolored wrapper.

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Almost Robusto 4 3/4 52 Ecuador Undisclosed USA, Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

La Aurora 115th Anniversary

$ 9.50

D OM I NI CAN REPUBLIC A beautifully produced robusto finished with a nearly flawless, reddish brown wrapper with a sweet cedar aroma. Produces an abundant smoke output with notes of sharp black pepper and wood complemented by a touch of caramel.

90

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Robusto 5 50 Ecuador Brazil Brazil, Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

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CORONA Sin Compromiso

$ 15.95

93

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Seleccion Intrepido 5 2/3 46 Mexico Ecuador Nicaragua

HVC La Rosa 520 Maduro

92

Ultra-flavorful and balanced with a profile of deep pepper, bittersweet chocolate, roasted almonds, and cream complemented by a rich, leather aroma on the finish. Soft-pressed and topped with a cropped pigtail. Medium plus strength.

$ 9.00 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Exquisitos 5 3/4 46 Mexico Nicaragua Nicaragua

Eiroa The First 20 Years

N I CA R AG UA A medium to full strength blend covered with a dark, flavorful wrapper. Delivers a well-balanced core of mocha and baker’s spice complemented by notes of cedar, caramel, and a touch of red pepper on the finish.

$ 13.66

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VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

646 Prensado 6 46 Honduras Honduras Honduras

BOTL.ORG

H O N D UR AS A sharply pressed cigar covered with a dark brown wrapper with excellent oils and slight veins. This medium strength corona is sweet and flavorful with notes of earth, black pepper, dark chocolate, espresso, and a touch of blackberry on the finish.

$ 10.00

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Corona Gorda 6 46 USA/Connecticut Ecuador Nicaragua

La Palina Black Label

N I CA R AG UA Covered with a dark, reddish brown wrapper with excellent oils, this medium strength corona produces an abundant smoke output with notes of sweet earth, pepper, cedar, and a touch of cocoa. Consistently well made.

$ 9.50

90

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Toro 6 50 Brazil Dominican Republic Nicaragua & Dominican Republic

Perla del Mar Maduro

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C A flavorful, medium bodied blend finished with a dark, oily wrapper. Delivers an intense profile of pepper, earth, wood, and dark chocolate complemented by a rich, leather aroma.

Produces an excellent output of thick, heavy smoke.

$ 6.05

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N I CA R AG UA

VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Perla “L” 5 1/2 46 USA/Connecticut Nicaragua Nicaragua

N I CA R AG UA Square-pressed and covered with a dark, even-colored wrapper with slight veins showing. Mild to medium strength with a core of earth, pepper, and charred oak complemented by notes of espresso. Consistently provides an excellent draw and burn.

SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

85

CORONA Guardian of the Farm

$ 8.20

92

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Apollo 6 44 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

Mombacho Liga Maestro

Impeccably balanced and flavorful with a profile of cedar, almond cream, soft spice, and a hint of coffee. This medium strength blend is consistently well made providing an excellent draw and burn and tons of thick, aromatic smoke.

$ 10.46

92

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Hermoso 6 46 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

Don Pepín García Blue Label

91

N I CA R AG UA Opens with a profile of sweet cedar and soft spice joined by notes of almond, caramel, and tanned leather delivered by a creamy textured smoke. This impeccably constructed blend is finished with a clean, reddish brown wrapper.

Medium-plus strength.

$ 6.90 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Exquisitos 5 5/8 46 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

Cain Daytona

N I CA R AG UA Delivers a core of pepper and earth balanced by notes of cocoa, caramel, and cedar complemented by a rich leather aroma. This medium to full strength blend is consistently well constructed and covered with a reddish brown wrapper with excellent oils.

$ 5.78

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Corona 6 46 Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua

Cuesta Rey Centro Fino

N I CA R AG UA Consistently well constructed, this medium bodied blend has a profile of soft pepper and earth accompanied by caramel, nuts, leather, and subtle spices. Delivers a perfect draw and an even burn.

$ 7.25

90

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No. 60 6 50 Ecuador Dominican Republic Dominican Republic

Protocol Official Misconduct

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N I CA R AG UA

D O M I N I CA N R E P UBLI C Smooth and creamy with flavors of nuts, cedar, coffee, and soft pepper. This mild to medium strength corona is covered with an attractive wrapper with a supple feel. Excellent combustion leaving behind a tight, compact ash.

$ 9.7 9 VITOLA: LENGTH: RING: WRAPPER: BINDER: FILLER:

Corona Gorda 5 5/8 46 Ecuador Nicaragua Nicaragua

N I CA R AG UA A flavorful blend with red pepper and wood up front accompanied by more subtle notes of cinnamon, leather, nuts, and a touch of cream.

Well constructed and finished with a neatly applied, light brown wrapper. Medium-plus strength.

SEPT / OCT 2019 | CIGAR SNOB |

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SOME OF THE THINGS THAT DREW MICHAEL HERKLOTS TO MUSIC ALSO MADE HIM FALL IN LOVE WITH CIGARS. 20 YEARS AFTER HIS FIRST SMOKE, THE NAT SHERMAN VP IS ONE OF THE CIGAR CULTURE’S MOST EFFECTIVE AMBASSADORS. - BY NICOLÁS ANTONIO JIMÉNEZ / PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTIN CROOK -

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ichael Herklots remembers his first cigar in far more vivid detail than most of the people I ask. It makes sense that he would. He’s not sure he’d ever so much as seen someone else smoke a premium cigar when he was growing up in Danielson, Connecticut. So when he was an 18-year-old college student in Boston and his friend Chris Brown (now a regular at Pittsburgh’s Leaf & Bean) suggested they check out the now-defunct Masters Cigars on Newbury Street, the experience hit him like a ton of bricks.

It wasn’t necessarily the cigar itself, though. It was everything that came along with it.

“It was like a different world,” Mike said. “I followed him and it was like walking through this warp zone into a completely different place and a different culture. And it was incredible. He asked me if I wanted to try a cigar. I tried his; he had an Ashton Classic Panatela. He explained to me how to do it and that you don’t inhale. And it was interesting. It was a flavor I’d never tasted. It was a medium I’d never felt. It was a culture I’d never seen.”

Out of the quiet corner The son of a pediatrician father and an art teacher, Mike spent most of his childhood in the northeast corner of Connecticut.

“I don’t want to say a poor area because it’s certainly very rich in culture ... but it’s not a wealthy area. When you think of Connecticut, it is not the Martha Stewart corner of Connecticut down by New York. It’s the opposite corner of Connecticut. It’s actually called the quiet corner.”

Both Mike and his twin sister developed a passion for performance from an early age. His father’s practice was right in their home, and the two would entertain families as they waited for their appointments. Mike got hooked on drumming when he was 10 — and whatever you might think of the idea of having to hear your doctor’s kid drum for you while you wait for your appointment, it helped sharpen him as a musician. In high school, he took the drumming more seriously, getting more formal education, learning music theory, familiarizing himself with different styles, attending clinics and even studying things like classical snare drum performance at UConn.

“It was sort of formalizing the commitment to wanting to be a real drummer,” Mike said. “I didn’t just want to be a guy playing rock who played on stage. I wanted to truly be able to read music, to sight read, to mark charts, to be able to just

90 | CIGAR SNOB | SEPT / OCT 2019

sit down and play at a moment’s notice. So that education really started in high school and then certainly it was formalized to a much greater degree in college.”

After high school, Mike headed to Boston, where he attended the Berklee College of Music. Having always loved working — he’d had jobs at a drugstore and a doughnut shop in his high school years — Mike went into a work-study program right away. But that first cigar must have stuck with him, because his first summer job in college was at a retail kiosk at Boston’s Prudential Center called The Humidor. Not long after he started that job, the kiosk’s owner sold the small business to a wholesaler “who basically showed up and said, ‘I don’t have time for this. You run it,’” Mike said.

“And so I ran that all through college.”

“...it takes a certain level of education and sophistication to love jazz. I think premium cigars are the same.”

Artists aren’t good, as Mike notes, at dipping their toes into the water. They go all in. Not only was the cigar world an exciting, foreign culture for Mike to dive into — it was also one in which he saw a lot of parallels with the music he loved so much, along with opportunities to relate to and connect with people with whom he might otherwise not have much in common.

“Imagine, as an 18-year-old kid, it was legally available for me to enjoy the product, being exposed to very professional people who had careers, who had income that allowed them to afford this hobby. It was just incredible,” he said.

“And then, frankly, it was also a bit self-serving because there’s a lot that goes hand in hand between the cigar world, the jazz world. I was playing primarily jazz at that time. And so it just made a lot of sense that it was still something I was passionate about. It required a degree of sophistication in how you enjoy the product, not unlike jazz, you know, you can’t just listen to jazz for the first time in like a small combo quartet format and understand how they’re playing and what the solos mean and how the form follows the tune. So it takes a certain level of education and sophistication to love jazz. I think premium cigars are the same.”

The business side of cigars, it turned out, had

some things in common with the music world as well. Both are industries in which it’s tough to build any success without also building a network of strong, intimate relationships. It’s who you know. And Berklee was, as Mike put it, “a microcosm of the real world.”

“All the politics that exist in the music industry in a real-life setting exist there. So, you know, you can work and practice and audition and do everything you think you’re supposed to do to be recognized and then the opportunity just might not be available because there’s someone else who had a connection who was known before they came in and would be basically recruited for a gig before you even had the opportunity to audition and demonstrate that you were as good or better or close. And so, I think that that prepared me for a lifetime of auditioning and trying to demonstrate that I was good enough to be on a stage with a particular band.”

It was an awakening for Mike, who’d been accustomed to life in a smaller community, where everybody knew his family (he recalls the first time he ever had to spell his name for someone after moving away from home) and where relationships were a given. It was also an awakening in the sense that, at Berklee, he was a small fish in a big pond of ultra-talented young musicians.

The competition was stiff, but cigars turned into an edge that helped (and still helps) him deepen relationships in music.

“You would normally see me behind a small drum set dressed nicely, playing in a jazz club. I also played full-time in a wedding band on Nantucket.

Sometimes three or four weddings a weekend.

It was absolute insanity,” he said, adding that he played every top-40 tune you can imagine. “I think Sweet Caroline was both my favorite and least favorite. When you play live and you watch people enjoy what you’re playing, that’s a very fulfilling moment. No one gets wild watching live jazz. People get fucking wild at a wedding on Nantucket to Sweet Caroline.”

Madison Avenue When he moved to New York in 2002 after graduation, he continued to pursue music — making a decent living at that — but also picked up a fulltime gig at the Davidoff store on Madison Avenue, which was being run by David Kitchens, who’d previously managed a store in Boston while Mike was a student there. In 2006, Mike was moved to the Davidoff shop on Columbus Circle, where he was made GM. And in 2008, when David moved on from that gig, Mike was tasked with running both shops. Just like that, Mike was both an active musician and running two of the best-known tobacconists and luxury brands in New York City.

ously their family. There was no ego there. What they wanted was a successful business that they could be proud of in all the categories they were in. And so I’m very proud of what we were able to achieve. They’re amazing people. They’re honest and they’re hardworking. They’re profoundly generous. And those are really values that they brought into the business, not just in the way they conduct themselves, but how they led the business. Even though they sold the business, those values don’t go away. Even today, when I think about our role as a brand and a company sort of carrying on the legacy of the Sherman family, that responsibility to preserve that legacy is as much, if not more important now than it was then.”

The move to Nat Sherman and the freedom he was given to build up the premium cigar side of the business meant that not only would Mike be able to put all his experience in retail to work (the Nat Sherman Townhouse is one of Manhattan’s premier tobacconists), but also that he’d be able to dive into the product development side of things. Here, the relationships that he’d built while running Davidoff’s two New York City stores would prove invaluable. That started with his relationship with the Quesadas in the Dominican Republic.

“Our relationship is almost 18 years old,” Mike said. “And it’s a profound level of intimacy with that family. Raquel Quesada went to school in Boston and worked for David [Kitchens] there.

David used to go down to DR once a year, so he invited me on one of those trips with some other local friends from New York and New Jersey. We just spent time with [the Quesadas] and went to dinners and saw the factory and enjoyed different cigars and that was really an amazing experience.

I started going back even more. The relationship just grew organically. There was no preconceived idea of someone trying to get something out of it because there was no real direct quid pro quo.

It was an unlikely relationship. I worked for Davidoff. They did not make any products for us. We certainly sold some of their products in our store, but, you know, it was a relationship that was built truly and solely on friendship and caring about each other.

By the time he was offered a job at Nat Sherman (which, at the time, was still owned by the Sherman family, who sold the company to Altria in 2017) in 2011, Mike had already gotten to the point where he was getting a lot of the fulfillment he felt from music — the interaction, collaboration, spontaneity, improvisation — in the retail cigar industry. He was still playing occasionally, but he was practically all in on cigars. And Nat Sherman represented a whole new set of oppor-

tunities for him. “[The Shermans] were very proud of the company, very proud of its history, but in particular they were frustrated with their ability to grow and win in the premium cigar business. It just wasn’t a major focus for them. And they would certainly admit that,” Mike said. “So they gave me a lot of leeway to do what I felt was in the best interest of the company and the brand and obvi-

“And probably the biggest leap in the relationship was when the younger generation of the family wanted to develop the 35th Anniversary. It was the first time ‘Quesada’ would’ve been on a brand.

And they called me and said, ‘Hey, we need you to come to the DR tomorrow.’ I thought for sure, like, ‘Oh my God, Manolo [Quesada] is dead. Something happened. What do we do?’ So I get down there, they picked me up. That was even weirder.

Like, where is Manolo? What happened to Manolo? And they brought me to where the factory is today. It was a tobacco warehouse at the time.

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They had all these bales set up and they said, ‘We want to pitch our dad on a brand called Quesada, we want to start with the 35th Anniversary and we need some help. Let’s just do it together.’ And so we worked really closely on that project and pitched Manolo on the idea. That was an amazing opportunity to build something from scratch with them. And obviously that worked out really well.

Our relationship has only thrived since then.”

That was all in about 2009. They’d also already been making Nat Sherman’s Metropolitan Connecticut and Maduro since the ‘90s. The relationship made the Quesadas an obvious family to turn to when Mike needed a manufacturing partner to start building the Nat Sherman portfolio two years later. The Quesadas also became the manufacturer behind Nat Sherman’s Timeless Dominican (since rebranded as Timeless Prestige), Timeless Sterling, Epoca and Epoca Reserva, along with a number of Nat Sherman’s specialedition releases.

Mike had also met the Plasencia family a number of times over the years through the Quesadas, who have their Casa Magna brand manufactured by the Plasencias in Nicaragua.

“Tasked with this idea of rebuilding,” Mike said, “we didn’t want to just be in one country, one factory. We thought it was important to spread it out a little. And Manolo was kind enough to make an introduction and really kind of vouch for me and say, ‘Hey, bring this kid in and let him do what he does.’ And so the Plasencias were very, very gracious. It’s obviously a significantly larger scale operation compared to the Quesada business, which is a much more intimate factory environment. But the Plasencias were equally gracious and very willing to go all in on this journey with me and and create products that we really believed were quite unique.”

Plasencia makes Nat Sherman’s Timeless Nicaragua and Epoca Limited Edition.

Finally, there’s the relationship with Davidoff. Davidoff makes the Host Series for Nat Sherman out of its Honduran factory, which had been producing that cigar when Davidoff acquired the facility as part of its acquisition of Camacho from the Eiroa family.

“It was a very difficult choice to leave Davidoff,” Mike said. “As big a company as Davidoff is, it is a family business and I was fortunate to work closely with the family that owns the company.

So it felt very familial. I was actually very excited to be able to preserve and grow the Davidoff relationship by having one of our products made there as well. The Host has been around since the ‘90s. Their commitment to consistency is as admirable as the Quesadas’ and Plasencias’. The

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Host is a very important product to our portfolio.”

Leaving his mark The Shermans trusted Mike with the task of building their premium cigar business for more than just his ability to build relationships, though. He has an excellent palate, which is critically important to the product development process, especially when new product needs to not only be consistent in the sense of having minimal variation batch to batch — but also in the sense of being consistent with the Nat Sherman brand identity. While he’s responsible for just about everything at Nat Sherman outside of cigarettes, product development and maintenance is where he spends the lion’s share of his time.

“I’m a stickler for consistency,” Mike said. “I believe that we have the most consistent portfolio of products on the market today. If there were a stamp from a stylistic standpoint of blending ... We don’t do anything that’s a full-on ass kicker. There are other people who do it and they do it great and better than we could ever do it. It’s not authentic to what we do. So stylistically, I think our signature is really about real balance. It’s flavor that you taste, it’s texture you feel, it’s aroma you can smell.

Strength, flavor, aroma, and combustion are all equally important. Sterling, for example, which by all accounts is a relatively mild or mellow cigar, still has this rich, full body and creaminess. If I look at the Epoca Limited Edition, it’s tremendously full and spicy and bold, but there is still this creaminess and balance to it. And maybe that’s just personal preference, but it’s certainly proven successful. I don’t plan on changing it.”

You might not assume that Mike is so engaged in the blending process if you catch him at the Townhouse dressed for a day in Manhattan.

“Even though I think most people see me in a suit and tie the most, I’m in one less and less. I’m certainly not wearing a suit and tie in Santiago or Estelí. That’s really where I spend a tremendous amount of time,” he said.

Whatever he’s wearing, the guy seems like he’s dressed for success. It must be working, too, because this year is Mike’s twentieth in the cigar business. From that first chance cigar in Boston to the driver’s seat of one of the most respected American-made brands in the business, he’s left his mark by helping to both preserve and evolve the Nat Sherman identity.

“I think I would have said they’re crazy,” Mike said when I asked him how he might have reacted back in those Prudential Center kiosk days if someone had predicted he’d still be in the game all these years later. “Not because I didn’t love it, but because I don’t think I understood the bandwidth of the industry. At that point, all I knew was retail. So

the only thing I could wrap my head around was retail and the businesses that support retail, like sales reps and those types of things. Those are all great careers, but part of being a musician is that sort of ever changing evolution of how you work and who you work with. I just didn’t know that that type of fulfilling work was available in the [cigar] industry. It became very apparent as the years went on that it was still evolving and changing and there was still that newness to the work.”

And even as he’s been all in on cigars, his role in the industry has meant — as it does for so many in this business — deeper connections with people in other spheres. For instance, there’s music executive Tommy Mottola, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Carl Allen.

“It allowed me to connect with folks on a very different level. Folks who, as a musician, I would’ve loved to interact with and never would’ve had the opportunity. Cigars have created that opportunity.

As I’ve found other hobbies, whether it’s the culinary world ... You know, I don’t get to go hang out with Emeril in Hawaii for four days because I like his restaurants, but I have had the opportunity to do that because of my work in the cigar business.”

Of all the connections in which cigars played a role, though, there’s one that stands out as the closest.

“We met in a cigar event, funnily enough,” he said of his wife Tiffany. “I was teaching a cigar tasting class for the American Sommelier Association, and her roommate at the time was the admin for that group. Tiffany worked for Zagat. Her roommate invited her to come over and she said, ‘That sounds terrible.’ And then she talked to her mom and her mom said, ‘Slap on some lipstick and go, you never know who you’re gonna meet.’ And I took her to lunch the next day.”

The couple have two daughters who are too young to start blending cigars, but who Mike says have already inherited other talents.

“Man, they have such good rhythm and they have incredible pitch. I’m super excited and very fearful,” he said. Will there be a family band down the road? “Lord, I hope not. But you never know. Never say never.”

Mike fell in love with cigar culture from the jump.

Over the intervening 20 years, he’s been an advocate for that culture without losing sight of the importance of high standards for quality.

“I feel a sense of responsibility in doing that. And I feel like in some way I have contributed positively to the growth of our industry.”

Find this story on cigarsnobmag.com for Michael Herklots' cigar smoking Spotify playlist.

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The cigar world is on Twitter and we aim to keep track of who’s leading who. The following is a scoreboard of the cigar world’s most relevant Tweeples. The list is sorted by number of followers and broken into groups: Top 20 Twitter Cigar Companies & Reps, Top 10 Twitter Retailers, Top 10 Online Cigar Tweeps, Top 3 Twitter Cigar Organizations, and Top 3 Cigar Radio Twitter accounts. If you have the numbers and belong in one of these groups, stand up and be counted! Set us straight via Twitter @cigarsnobmag.

TOP CIGAR COMPANIES (sorted by Twitter followers) Rocky Patel @RockyPatelCigar.........................................

Drew Estate Cigars @DrewEstateCigar.............................

Padron Cigar @PadronCigars............................................

CAO International @CAOCigars.........................................

Alec Bradley Cigars @AlecBradley....................................

La Flor Dominicana @LFDCigars.......................................

Jonathan Drew @JonathanDrewArt..................................

Camacho Cigars @camachocigars....................................

Ashton Cigars @ashtoncigar.............................................

Pete Johnson @TatuajeCigars...........................................

Xikar Inc @XIKARinc.........................................................

La Gloria Cubana @lagloriacubana....................................

Punch Cigars @punchcigars.............................................

Miami Cigar Co @miamicigar.............................................

Nick Perdomo @PerdomoCigars.......................................

Ernesto Padilla @PadillaCigars.........................................

Avo Cigars @AvoCigars.....................................................

AJ Fernandez @ajfcigars..................................................

La Palina Cigars @La PalinaCigars....................................

Nat Sherman Intl. @Nat42nd.............................................

33412 31962 27488 25219 21132 19920 19186 19101 17693 16713 14850 14647 12988 12978 12966 12371 11865 11792 11696 11549

TOP CIGAR ORGANIZATIONS CRA @cigarrights............................................................. 14699 Premium Cigar Association @PCA1933............................. 8166 Tobacconist University @tobacconistU............................. 4616

TOP CIGAR RADIO Cigar Dave Show @CigarDaveShow................................. 11567 Smooth Draws @SmoothDraws....................................... 4366 KMA Talk Radio @KMATalkRadio...................................... 2317

SOME OF OUR FAVORITE TWEETS, MENTIONS, AND RANDOM SOCIAL MEDIA GOODNESS.

TOP CIGAR RETAILERS & REPS Famous Smoke Shop @FamousSmokeShop......................

Mulberry St. Cigars @MulberryStCigar.............................

Cigar Hustler @cigarhustler..............................................

Cigar Row @CigarRow.....................................................

Jeff Borysiewicz – Corona Cigar Co @CoronaCigarCo.......

Michael Herklots–Nat Sherman @MichaelHerklots............

Barry – Two Guys Smoke Shop @Barry2Guys...................

Cheap Humidors @cheaphumidors...................................

Lindsay Siddiqi @TheCigarChick.......................................

Palm Desert Tobacco @palmdsrttobacco.........................

14128 13569 11515 8223 7459 6623 6330 5401 5275 5062

@Cigarpassionista via Instagram It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.-Amit Ray

TOP ONLINE CIGAR TWEEPLES David Voth–Sex, Cigars, & Booze @SexCigarsBooze.........

Cigar News @CigaRSS ....................................................

Cigar Events @CigarEvents...............................................

Cigar Federation @CigarFederation..................................

Robusto Cigar Babe @RobustoBabe.................................

Stogie Boys @StogieBoys ...............................................

Cigar Evaluations @CigarEvaluation.................................

Cigar Inspector @CigarInspector .....................................

The Stogie Guys @stogieguys...........................................

Tom Ufer @cigarsmonkingman..........................................

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148983 15627 14652 12413 10331 8770 8736 8380 8070 6548

@toscanocigars via Instagram Kentucky tobacco, the tobacco that made history #Toscanocigar #Toscanocigars #history #firecured #kentuckyfirecured #cigarsnobmag #sigarotoscano #madeinitaly

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EVENTS DAVIDOFF GOLDEN BAND AWARD AT GUY SAVOY Las Vegas

Davidoff can always be counted on to go all out with its after-hours events at the IPCPR trade show. This year, one of those events was a dinner at Restaurant Guy Savoy. Known for its inventive French tasting menus, Guy Savoy has two Michelin stars and a 5-diamond rating from AAA. Guests were hosted in an open-air dining area and treated to Smoked Old Fashioneds made with Macallan 12 and paired with Davidoff Nicaragua cigars. Then came a five-course meal paired with wines. After dinner, Davidoff presented its annual Golden Band Awards to some of the top tobacconists in the country.

Dylan Austin, Garrett Damore, Tiffany Ashley, Paul Copeland, Beat Hauenstein and Johan Zwaan

“Davidoff Cigars master blenders and renowned culinary luminaries share the same passion and mission of filling people’s time beautifully with their exquisite creations. With this shared mission, and with Davidoff’s desire to create extraordinary cigar experiences inspired by flavors, holding the Golden Band Awards at Restaurant Guy Savoy is the perfect setting for such a special evening,” said Lana Fraser, Davidoff’s director of marketing.

Rusty, Russ and Christina Sutton

Saiid and Angie Karroum, Ben Christofferson, Eliseo González and Andrew Considine

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Doug Laue and Jeff Borysiewicz

Henke Kelner and Kris Miller

Hamlet Espinal, Doug Laue, Pedro Wagner, Henke Kelner and Edward Simon

PHOTO CREDIT: M Place Productions

Pedro Wagner, Thomas DeAddio, Angel Benítez, Jeff and Tanya Borysiewicz, Dylan Austin and Beat Hauenstein

Lana Fraser helps Frankie Anetzberger get lit.

Eliseo González, Andrew Considine, Ben Christofferson and Dylan Austin

Dylan Austin, Will Pirk, Frankie Anetzberger, Boris Grossman, Beat Hauenstein and Johan Zwaan

Edward Simon and Hamlet Espinal

Eliseo González, Lana Fraser, Ben Christofferson, Beat Hauenstein, Andrew Considine and Dylan Austin

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EVENTS DAVIDOFF OF GENEVA CIGAR BAR PARTY Las Vegas

Davidoff hosted a smattering of IPCPR trade show attendees at their Las Vegas Strip cigar bar for cocktails, cigars, and raffles.

Among other things, Davidoff auctioned some large Camacho humidors, one of which was won by our own Ivan Ocampo.

Jessica Rodríguez, George Rami, Mike Baca, Kim Squires, Grace Cabezas, Fernando Romero and Carlos Escalona

Dylan Austin and George Rami

Carlos Martínez, Henke Kelner, Pragmy Marjchal, Juan González and Enrique Tavarez

Carlos Oyosa. Rafael Noesi. Pedro Rodríguez, Carlos Oyosa Jr. and José Antonio Paiewonsky

Debbie Kerrigan, Laura Koteles and Sara Tio

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Lana Fraser, Gary and Barbara Kolesaire

Paul Segal, Andre Milchteim, Andre Carusso Sacchi and Alex Avellar

Brian Nolan and Amber Robinson

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EVENTS MY FATHER DINNER AT LAVO Las Vegas

During the IPCPR trade show, My Father Cigars hosted some of the top tobacconists in the country for cocktails, cigars and a family-style Italian dinner at Lavo, a restaurant at the Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip. Among those in attendance were Jaime Garcia, Pepín García, Janny García, and Pete Johnson. After dinner, everyone went back to cigars on a terrace overlooking the Strip.

Jaime García, Yosef Joudeh, Pepín and María García

Wade Roberts, Adam Shepherd and Trae Roberts

John Gallogly, Jennifer Irons and Kurt Kendall

Christine Simonian, Vartan Seferian, Scott Pearce, Janny García and Craig Cass

Sancho Oset García, María López, Hostos Fernández Quesada and Albert Montserrat

William Saladrigas, Jandy García, Joseph Pérez-García and Joaquín Saladrigas

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Alcides Montenegro and Oquel Guerra

Kendrick Woolstenhulme and Brandon Ovenson

Mike Perales, Shirah Metzigian and firends

EVENTS MOMBACHO MEDIA PARTY Las Vegas

Cigar media — from magazine editors to bloggers – were hosted by Mombacho Cigars at the NoMad Hotel (a boutique hotel located on the top floor of the Monte Carlo), where they were treated to rum and cigars. Specifically, Diplomático rum and the Diplomático cigar, which is made by Mombacho at their Granada, Nicaragua factory.

Emiliano Rocha, Claudio Sgroi, Marcel Knobel, Marcello Corazza and Hung Ma

Claudio Sgroi and Manny Peña

Ted Langley and Dom Cipponeri

Dennis Tsrang, Tripp Waldrop and Jason Meyers

NAT SHERMAN CELEBRATES WOMEN IN CIGARS Las Vegas

Nat Sherman hosted a women’s event at Delmonico Steakhouse at the Venetian. Guests were treated to hors d'oeuvres, wine and champagne. The idea was to bring together the women of the cigar industry for a celebration and some networking. The Cigar Snob team was represented, naturally, by Jamilet Calviño.

Team Nat Sherman

Shirley McClellan, Dearar Herran, Crystal Chatam and Edwina Brown

Raquel Quesada and Benecia Wiliams

Alison Tisch, Heather Istvan and Ashley Campbell

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EVENTS BALMORAL HOSPITALITY SUITE Las Vegas

The Balmoral team hosted guests at their Las Vegas hospitality suite for drinks and cigars, including new releases like the Añejo XO Nicaragua and Serie Signaturas Paso Doble, a collaboration with La Flor Dominicana. This hangout happened during the IPCPR trade show, so guests were primarily tobacconists and cigar media.

Jaime Florez-Estrada, George Margioukla and Francisco Batista

Eric Danials and John Miller

Tom Foti, Jaime Florez-Estrada and Lisa Pervin

Jonnette Kraft and Mark Weissenberger

CIGAR MARKETPLACE HOSPITALITY SUITE Las Vegas

Cigar Marketplace, a new online cigar brokerage, hosted guests at a suite during the IPCPR trade show in Las Vegas. Guests enjoyed cigars from a variety of brands, cocktails, and also a seemingly bottomless supply of White Castle burgers. It was a cigar industry house party and it was a great time, with cigar makers (like Felix Mesa of El Galán, Luis Cuevas of Casa Cuevas and Claudio Sgroi of Mombacho), tobacconists and cigar media all in attendance.

Claudio Sgroi and Albert Montserrat

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Charlie López and Starky Arias

Cliff Haynes, C.J. Newton and Erik Calviño

Frank Herrera and Alec Cuevas

Gabriel and Grace Álvarez

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EVENTS TRINIDAD AT LA TROVA Miami

The official release party for Trinidad Espiritu cigars was held at Café La Trova in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. Guests partied in a vintage Havana-themed setting with classic Cuban cocktails courtesy of Havana Club Rum and prepared by Café La Trova’s renowned cantineros that paired perfectly with food by James Beard Award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein.

Eddie Guerra, Mariana Rodríguez and Arlyn Broche

Rob Norris and Rafael Nodal

Ernesto Kranwinkel and Nelson Fernández

Millie Lukose and Stephanie Maldonado

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Ivica Serdarevic, Erik Calviño, Hostos Fernández Quesada, Starky Arias, Albert Montserrat and David Llovich

Jason Resnik, Oliver Hyams, Ryan Leeds and Rich Ivancic

Jorge Ahued, Albert Montserrat and Adriana Ortega

Erick García and Stephanie Flores

Julio Cabrera, George Arango, Gio Gutiérrez and Marvin Tapia

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EVENTS ROCKY PATEL AT GALIANO CIGAR ROOM Coral Gables

Rocky Patel and his crew were at Galiano Cigar Room, the only full cigar bar in Coral Gables, for a cigars and whisky pairing event.

Rocky Patel Premium Cigars products were featured along with Glenfiddich 14 Year Single Malt Scotch. Guests who purchased a box of Rocky Patel cigars received a bottle of The Glenfiddich along with an additional 5-pack of cigars.

Max Bichler, Ozzy Sanchez, Rocky Patel, José Morel and Ciro Rodríguez

Bobby Nuñez and Albert Lara

Tim Fox, Sarah and Laura Fairweather

Jack Sterenberg, Izzy Martínez, Rocky Patel and Ray Granja

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Miguel Lara, Tony Quintana and Leo DaSilva

Cheryl and Tony Wilcher

Gypsy Rose Pomares and Rick Sánchez

Byron Price

Bianca, Adis and Mae

Leo Ávila, José Morel and Nelson Rodríguez

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EVENTS DAVIDOFF AT THE BILTMORE Coral Gables

Davidoff held a special event at The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, one of South Florida’s most historic and iconic hotels. Guests paired Macallan single malt whisky and Davidoff cigars, along with hors d'oeuvres.

Bottles of Macallan, boxes of Davidoff cigars and other prizes were also raffled off to some lucky guests in attendance.

Carlos Escalona and Candy Kakouris

Cristina Taño and Armando Silva

Tony Andrade and Juan A. Del Cerro, Sr.

Krista and Jonathan Dacosta

Danny Alcantara, Robert Cohen and Alex de Leon

CIGAR SNOB PODCAST

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EVENTS NESTOR MIRANDA AT THE WHARF Miami

Miami Cigar & Co. was well represented at this event at The Wharf Miami, one of the city’s favorite new event venues on the Miami River. There were specials on drinks and pizza as well as — you guessed it — plenty of Nestor Miranda Collection cigars on hand for those in attendance. In addition to the regular cigar loving suspects, this “Full Moon Ride” event drew a cast of bikers invited by Peterson Harley Davidson.

Willy Marante, Curtis Yap, Nestor Miranda, Chris Normand, Jason Wood and Jorge Pérez

Nestor Miranda and Tony Guerra

Cigar Familia

Tatiana Miranda-Wood, Barbie Calviño and Edna Galvez

Omar Núñez and Jose Alba

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Paola Jardine and Frieda Schoepe

Nicolás Antonio Jimánez, Enrique “Red” Hernández and Aramis Pérez

Bobbie January, Alex Pham and Massiel Prieto

Debra and Michael Brown

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