CNY - Romeo y Julieta Churchill - 1998

[Philc2001]

With a couple of days until Christmas, my beautiful thoughtful wife bought some Italian chestnuts - she knows I love roasting them at Christmas time. So I roasted a bunch and set up a little treat on our pool patio with a lovely bottle of Blackstone. For the brief respite from the Christmas hustle, I chose a wonderful 1998 Romeo Churchill gifted to me in 2002 by a dear friend 15 years ago. I don’t know the box code, only the year.

Quite dark and reddish, on the verge of being maduro in color, this cigar scores highly on aesthetics. Draw was near perfect, and cigar foot melded with flame easily, kicking of the session. First impressions were of a lovely citrusy, oaky aroma, but very, very light on the palate. Flavor was minimal at best, almost non-existent through most of the first third. Burn was near perfect.

Lately I’ve been keeping an eye on the elements when I smoke, and today the temp was nearly 80df and 55% RH when I lit. As I smoke through the halfway section, the temp has dropped to 74, and the RH has risen to 63.

The sun had fully set and the second half of the cigar started to satisfy my palate much more that the first, though flavor was still very light. I don’t smoke many Churchill size cigars, and when I do I always find they start out light, but this more so than usual. My thought is this cigar probably hit its prime about 5 years ago. Still, the aroma was intoxicating.

As the final third commenced, the temp dropped to 70df and RH is now 71% on my patio. The RyJ finally hit its stride and the flavor started to dance on my palate. A mix of intoxicating citrus, nutty, oaky aroma enveloped us, and the flavor of caramel, vanilla, creme brûlée and roasted nuts lingered on my tongue as we finished the first bottle and opened another. Wonderful.

The final third was like a dream with a satisfying ending. There were so many elements of cream and nuts, I was just laying back on the chaise lounge and drifting on a wave of euphoria from the aroma and flavors. A very rewarding finish to what started so meekly. Temp was now 67, RH was 77. Big change.

I would rate the first 2/3 of the cigar 5/10 (high marks for aroma and aesthetics, but near zero in flavor), but the last third was 9.8. If I could have a 5 or 6 inch cigar that tasted like the last third of this RyJ I’d buy a truckload.

 

[Auspaul]

Nice review

[GotaCohiba]

Good on you for sticking it through with what appeared to be a mediocre past it’s prime cigar