God save the queen
The objective of Forum Cigar Club is to create a community where we can discuss, appreciate, explore and most importantly; enjoy the craftsmanship, quality and tradition of the world of cigars.
I don’t want to be political, but I do have to share the context and the importance of the historic moment we are living in the UK. For those of you who are not aware, last week Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away.
Regardless of our opinions of the monarchy, no one can deny the historic importance of this moment. We are experiencing history in the making, as we mark the end of a 70 year reign by the Queen. For those of us lucky enough to live in London, we’ve experienced a period of 10 days of mourning and paying our respects.
Today, we are at the end of the Queen’s funeral. On Saturday, we were able to pay our respects to her by going to her lying-in-state at Westminster Hall after 13 hours of queuing through the city of London.
I have chosen this cigar to commemorate the Queen because of its age -one of my most aged cigars- and the humility of smoking a not-labelled cigar. We are going through a historic moment and one of the best qualities I take from THE Queen, was her ability of staying down to earth regardless of her statue, and I find the ethos of Lost & Founds cigars to have something in common with that.
If you are not aware of the ethos of L&F cigars, let me summarise it. Robert Cladwell started L&F after realising that most of the best cigar makers in the world undoubtedly end up with forgotten batches of some of their best work due to different circumstances. These cigars lay forgotten in their ageing rooms and warehouses unable to be sold as their original bands, so as the name suggests, Caldwell finds these lost gems and then sells them unbanded. This gives us the chance to smoke some lost gems, most of which have years of ageing, this one in particular has 8+ years of ageing.
There is something so refreshing about smoking an unbanded cigar which you have certainty is a premium cigar. This is an honest experience by smoking the cigar without any bias coming from the band, origin or manufacturer.
Pre-light. It is a beautiful velvety and quiet dark cigar, with a couple of veins in the wrapper. The box pressed is fantastic even after 8+ years of ageing, not being tightly packed alongside the rest of the cigars in the box.
I get strong chocolate notes with cedar - I guess from the ageing rooms shelfs where it was lost - the foot has a great mix of black pepper and caramel/vanilla sweetness. It has a perfect draw with a semi oily finish in the lips.
Wow! Impressive spicy start for such an aged cigar, makes me think if it has Nicaraguan tobaccos in the blend. Strong wood notes with a toffee sweetness and finish with a bitter taste linger. I know that it sounds so contradicting what I’m saying, but it is true and this is one of the reasons why I love smoking aged cigars, they get super nuanced in their flavours.
On the 2nd third, the black pepper continues to dominate with a beautiful bitterness on the top of the palate and the sides of the tongue. The sweetness has reduced and been replaced with wood and earthy notes.
The last third remains quite similar, allowing you to really get into the nuance of the cigar.
In terms of pairing I went for an easy choice, Woodford Reserve Bourbon. It was a great choice as it definitely complemented the sweetness of the cigar, without overpowering it. I’ve found that when smoking aged cigars, don’t go for anything too strong, as the ageing will mellow down any harsh notes of the cigar and you do not want to overpower the cigar.
But now I want to hear from you, have you smoked a L&F cigar before? Have you enjoyed an aged cigar? Do you like smoking aged cigars?
Let me know in the comments section below, but for now, I will say thank you so much for being here and I hope you have a great day.
