Padron 1926 Maduro 80 Years

A beautiful box pressed perfecto with minimal veins and a chocolate leather colored wrapper. Pre-light aroma was sweet, nutty, and intense. Cut, light, and draw were all flawless. The first flavors were light tobacco and nuts. About an inch in the cigar changes flavors to black cherry and sweet tobacco. The complexity of this smoke continues to evolve; about a third of the way in pepper and salt tastes are picked up in the background with some of the afore mentioned flavors dissipating. Quite remarkable, I can not remember other cigars, except for one or two, changing flavor profiles so many times, so quickly.

The cigar begs for a aged spanish brandy - solera gran reserve and for the smoker to be alone or with a very close friend. Another thing about this cigar, you can go away and do something else for five minutes and it is still burning as perfectly as when you left it - impressive. The cigar required one very minor touch up, and from then on burn was straight. Ash was dark gray and flaky.

Halfway in and your palette will already have been seriously tested. The cigar begins to taste more of darker notes; roasted espresso pushed to the point of almost burnt. You may realize that the cigar may be getting hot at this point, not do to construction issues, but the fact that your fingers will not let it go. Like a great lover you refuse to let it go, picking it up quickly, drawing again even though you can feel it's rising warmth.

This is a masterpiece. The flavors evolve again to rich hickory smoked BBQ, slightly bitter herbs, and very far in the background earth and tar. I am only two-thirds in and am quickly exhausting my ability to describe this cigar, but I know it can be summed up, though not by me. I leave it to poet Harry Dacre (I apologize to him for changing one word from 'mild' to 'great')-

'And all the world's atangle and ajar,

I meditate on interstellar spaces

And smoke a great cigar.'


I believe he was also a songwriter who passed away in 1922, but if anyone runs into him in the afterlife, give him one of these cigars. I know he'll appreciate it.