BHK 52 - Best Cigar of 2010 by Cigar Aficionado

I am just back from a tasting at Ten Manchester Street Hotel in honour of the freshly named Best Cigar of the Year 2010 by Cigar Aficionado - the Cohiba Behike 52 (or BHK 52)!

Many amongst the cigar community have been surprised by this choice... Cigar Aficionado is often very kind to non-Cuban (since it caters to mostly American readers for whom habanos are still off-limits, or theoretically are...) and it also tends to favour big sizes/ring gages. The BHK 52 (at 52 ring gage as the name says and 4.7" in length) is not necessarily small but most would have probably expected Cigar Aficionado to at least prefer its bigger brothers BHK 54 (5.7" x 54) and BHK 56 (6.5" x 56).



While these are all incredible smokes for cigars lovers (with still a lot to offer, given that they are still quite young cigars) I overall love the BHK 52 and I have been saying often to my friends that this is probably my favorite amongst the Behike, a reasonably short and incredibly punchy smoke, rich of aroma and coffee flavour.

At No. 10, the tasting was accompanied by an Irish Coffee which I thought was a pretty nice complement to this strong cigar. A great evening thanks to Ten and Hunters & Frankau.

P.S.: If I can give some simple advice - definitely have it on a full stomach! 

Christmas cigars

Like every Christmas, I went home and spent some time with my family, eating and drinking loads, opening presents, etc, etc... but what would Christmas be without good cigars? :)

Thankfully, my parents put together a great area outside their house with a nice and cozy area to enjoy some great puros, a personal "smoking lounge" well protected from the wind and therefore great to smoke (for me - not sure that was the intended use :))!

On Christmas day, after an amazing lunch, I therefore enjoyed a nice Partagas P1 (see my review here) with my brother; I somewhat felt that wasn't enough for such a special day and therefore I doubled-up with a Montecristo Maravilla. While smoking, I got a little bit carried away with the Christmas spirit and therefore I took also a picture of the nativity representation my sister Francesca had prepared in the "lounge" :) 

As you can see, I had with me all you need for a great smoke starting from my inseparable travel cigar caddy, a cutter, some matches and in this case a nice bottle of port - my brother Marco was recently in Portugal and brought back some bottles of this Portuguese internationally famous export...

And here is the Montecristo Maravilla, a limited edition issued in 2005 for the fifth release of the Habanos Collection "Book" series and the 70th anniversary of the Montecristo Brand, an amazing double-robusto size 55 ring gage for 182 mm.

This was definitively an outstanding smoke. A very classic Montecristo flavour, with lots of spice, tons of smoke and a great aroma from pretty much the beginning till the very end, one of those cigars that you wish you could smoke more often but are unfortunately not so easy to find, since they were produced in a somewhat limited number (well, in theory only 500 copies of the book containing 20 cigars each where made, or 10,000 cigars in total; in practice I think a few more of those cigars were made available for my own luck...)

Happy New Year!!!

Dear all - this is just a quick post to wish everybody a very Happy New Year!!! Hope you all had a chance to spend some quality time with your family and friends and, of course, enjoy some great cigars!

I certainly did! To prepare for the holidays, in fact, I paid a much deserved visit before Christmas to Ajay, at La Casa del Habano in Teddington, and bought some outstanding cigars...  More to come on them in future posts.

Instead, let me quickly describe some of the latest aged cigars that Ajay managed to obtain, including in particular some historical Partagas cigars.

For example, some Partagas Special Cabinet Selection for JJ Fox, probably from the 60s, in the picture below...

... as well as the original Lusitanias, again from the 60s, which were then made in a 109 format rather than the standard double-corona (note that the head is smaller - the 109 has since been reproduced in various occasions, at least in terms of format, including recently for the 2010 - 165 Aniversario Humidour which was presented at the Partagas Festival in Cuba last November)

Ajay also managed to put his hands on some aged "traditional" Lusitanias (not sure but at least from the 80s). What can I say... if any of you is wondering what could be a good present for next Christmas, just look at the picture below! :))