Partagas Maduro No.1 12DCRC

[MrBirdman]

Grabbed this for our Xmas Eve Eve Zoom chat. It was a great time with some fun stories, so I was more focused on the conversation than the cigar, but logged a few notes nonetheless. Sorta rough wrapper and fairly squishy even after some dryboxing. No scale but I’d safely wager this was under filled. Between that and it’s youth I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially as I’m not a big fan of Partagas. 

1st Third: Starts quite mild, with some classic Cuban maduro sweetness, a hint of cocoa. There is a hint of spice, but it’s more a Christmas spice than the typical Partagas pepper (which I don’t care for). The burn is wonky from the get go and stayed that way.

 
2nd Third: The cocoa remains and the flavors remind me a lot of Chai tea, a sort of exotic-spice sweetness. I’m kinda floored by how smooth this is. The retrohale is classic maduro. I wasn’t too focused on the cigar but kept thinking this had some Cohiba notes on the retrohale, but I think what I was really recalling were Maduro 5 notes rather than traditional Cohiba.  

Last Third. Not much has changed, and in fact the cigar overall has been pretty linear. I put it down after only a small portion of this third not because it got hot, but because the nicotine rush was too much (I’d not eaten much beforehand) 

Overall this was much better than expected given the youth and my general distaste for Partagas. This is much closer to my palate to the Maduro 5 profile than either is to their respective brand profiles. I will add that I smoked this very slow, and I’m a slow smoker to begin with. I did have to relight it twice but that was on me. 

Only downside was this had a real nicotine kick beyond what I enjoy, though that’s partly on my empty stomach and it’s youth. But otherwise it’s difficult to imagine how much better this could get with age. If smoked blind I would never have guessed it had a year of age, let alone 8 months. It was good enough to rate on a full scale rather than my star system for sticks with <1 year. 

A wonderful companion for a great chat with some fellow friends of Habanos. Best wishes to everyone for a safe and merry Christmas holiday, and a Happy New Year.  

93/94