Rocky Patel Olde World Reserve

All Rocky Patel cigars are made with a tremendous amount of love. This really shows in the Olde World Reserve Corojo. It has a dark, oily, milk chocolatey wrapper and an organic looking footer band displaying a large RP logo. The actual band, which is a shade darker than the wrapper, has the RP logo centered between two gold leaves and is encircled by tobacco flowers. The stick is a 5 1/2″ x 54 boxed-pressed cigar. It has a nice roundness to the edges, rather than the sharp edges of some box presses. This cigar was so good looking, I almost mistook it for a chocolate bar!

Let’s go back to the footer band for a moment. This is one of the things I like most about the Olde World Reserve. It gives an elegance to the cigar without being overpowering. It’s just slightly lighter than the cigar itself and sort of speckled throughout, which made me curious. I did a little research; some typing over here, plugging in numbers over there, and boom! It turns out this band is actually made from compressed pieces of leftover tobacco! How cool is that? The nose on the foot has a sweet, dark chocolate aroma, with a slight “earthiness” to it. Toasting opened up a woodsy aroma with a hint of pepper in the air. Right off the bat, this cigar strikes with a tingly spice on the tongue and some notes of cedar and pepper. But after about a quarter inch, they calm way down and you’re left with a mellow, leathery cigar for about an inch. The retro-hale on this cigar is robust, opening your pallet to some dark pepper and spices.

I tend to stray away from box-pressed cigars at times because they generally have burn issues. That was not the case with this Rocky. The burn line was dark and oily and the ash was a light grey that held tight to the cigar for about an inch and a half before dropping. But as the ash fell, the flavors opened up a bit. In fact, I would recommend tapping the ash off every half-inch with this cigar, which is something I don’t often do. The mellow leather and earthy flavors were accompanied by spice and cedar, which began to grow as the cigar burned on.

About an inch from the band, I hit the sweet spot. Rich flavors of nuts, spices, oak and leather abound from every puff. The cigar burned on with a passion! By this point, I may have touched up the cigar once or twice to even out the burn, but nothing serious. Sadly though, as suddenly as it came, it went. About a quarter-inch from the band, the flavors dropped and started to turn tarry. This is when I decided to set her down.

Would I smoke this cigar again?

Yes, I would. This cigar has a luxuriousness to it and craftsmanship to boot! You can pick this cigar up for about $5 and it lasts about an hour and a half. I’m not saying it’s the greatest cigar I’ve ever had, but for the quality and price point, it is more than worthy of being in my humidor!

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