Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 1 ETU May 17: Thanksgiving 17 Review

[Danimalia]

Hope this isn't too early.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. It's a great time to reflect on all the things I have to be grateful for. I try to make that gratitude practice a part of my daily life.

Onto the cigar.

Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 1

ETU May 17

Corona Gorda, 5.6 x 46

24:24 Handpicked (Orange Sticker)

Preliminaries: This cigar has a beautiful, smooth, Colorado-Claro wrapper. It is maybe a touch darker than your average Connecticut Shade leaf. I believe most Cuban wrappers are shade grown as well, so it's interesting to see the similarities sometimes. Although nominally, a 46 ring gauge, it appears to be more like a 48 or 50. Cold draw is mostly woody.

 

Cigar takes to flame very easily and the first few puffs reveal an ideal draw.

Initially, the cigar is light to medium body, and medium in flavor. Lovely woodiness with a bit of a sour tang. Some sweet cream. A touch of nutmeg. 

Burn is flawless.

This cigar is very generous with the smoke, despite being a touch on the lighter side of medium in terms of body. It doesn't leave me needing more.

I'm not sure how much complexity I am going to get here, considering the cigar is only 6 months old, but it delivers plenty of flavor

Every few puffs I get a blast of sweetness that is almost like honey. I really like it. There is just th faintest touch of leather coming in and out as well.

Into the second third, and the cigar is building a bit in intensity, though it's still a very smooth medium at most.

Graham cracker crust. I remember that from my last box of Hoyo Epicures. Those were Especiales, and they had a bit more body and richness than these do.

Now there is just a very small tough of fruitiness.

I'm well into the last 3rd now, and I don't think I'm going to get much more to add here. It's been a great smoke. These will be even better in the medium-term. I wouldn't want them to age for too long, but I bet in that 1-3 year period, they will be glorious. I would give this a CA rating of 92/93. A bit more complexity and delineation of flavors, and this will be a mid-90s smoke, IMO.

This is a cigar suitable for any smoker. It's soft and smooth enough for a morning smoke, and it has enough flavor to stand up for itself after dinner with drinks. In fact, my brother is coming over fairly early tomorrow to smoke a ham. He's an occasional smoker, and last time, I gave him a ball buster Bolivar PC. This might be a bit more suitable.

Final smoke time: 65-70 minutes.

[JohnS]

Happy Thanksgiving to you too and thank you for this thorough review. Well done!

[Sean3]

It's never too early for a good cigar!  Thanks for the review.

[Luca]

Good review! Happy Thanksgiving as well

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Danimalia]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement, fellas.

[Islandboy]

You really did get this in early...I somehow missed it until now. As John says, very thorough review, I’m looking forward to trying my first, with the Christmas sampler. Thanks for the review!

[Raskol]

Great review  Thanks for sharing!