TX Duo Review - Viaje Chicarrones Spicy 2015

[Çnote]

@Capn_Jackson another ghost Viaje for ya!

Pumpernickel & rosemary on the 1st puffs, but this immediately veers into a sour tarry mess. I give it a cross-v to open the draw, but it's not helping much as we are well in the Worcestershire zone. It's still quite smooth and the retro is painless, but very faint spices aren't worth the effort on my part. 

At about 1/2 way an obvious tunnel is apparent, but we have slid into a more gingerbread territory with some lip numbing pink peppercorn and dusting of red pepper flake.

Drifts into molasses and nutmeg around the band. Nub shows cold brew coffee and a wonderful richness.

Great beginning and end, I'd hasten to guess the rough parts are due to construction. 

[Capn_Jackson]

Nice-looking little Robusto, with a very amber-colored cello. Not sure how old, though I think @Çnote told me somewhere. 

Cold draw has hay, coffee, sweet tobacco notes, while the light-up is basically that with some pepper spice added.

Going on, great notes of old tobacco. Still a lot of intensity left in this. There’s some heat in the finish, but not actually a lot in the retro. Baked bread, blueberry coulis, some figgy funk, and cream. Great first half!

Second half starts with some tellicherry pepper, not overly hot but good earthiness. Some dried fruits, not sure what. Actually some wine notes, too, something red.

“Champagne?”

“We’re in the middle of a chase, Porthos!”

“You’re right… something red.”

Transitions to baclava with spicy honey. Black walnut, with a little shell. Creamy cocoa tart. This is turning out to be a lot sweeter than I expected. No salt or pork fat, which the name gave me to expect. 

It finished with some added soft leather and damp earth, syrupy molasses and more bakery spice. Cocoa and coffee. Very good stuff throughout this stick, a highly enjoyable smoke on a beautiful day. 90-92 from me.

[Çnote]

Glad you got the good one here!

[Hoosh]

I have to hand it to you guys for holding off on smoking these for ~10 years. I never tried to OG 2015, but I can tell you the 2025 “reblended” version released last July were very mid - at best. I had two of the originals, and was quite disappointed that these actually came from Aganorsa. It seems crazy to me that a once-every-10-years release wouldn’t just be spectacular on the day it was released. 

[Çnote]

6 hours ago, Hoosh said:

I have to hand it to you guys for holding off on smoking these for ~10 years.

Someone else did most of the work. That looks wet & fresh for certain. I got a handful of each of the EL25s, but I'm not in a rush. It's a journey, no secret.