Old Henry vs Havana Soul

[mrkmitch]

I had the rare opportunity to smoke both of these cigars last night. These are both considered "exclusive" productions from Jose "Pepin" Garcia for their respective retailers, the "Old Henry" is from Holts and the "Havana Soul" is from Cigar King. Both cigars have Nicaraguan grown Corojo wrappers with Nic binder and fillers and are full strength cigars. Excellant smokes, both recommended.

Both full bodied smokes started out with a nice peppery flavor, like fresh cracked white and black peppercorns, with an underlying mellowness of warm earth, coffee, and sweet herbs. The flavor development through out the smokes highlighted the peppery front-of-the-tounge flavor zing with warm mellow flavors of mature tobacco with nuances of sweet oily cashews and caramel imparted on the pallate and back of the tounge. Very enjoyable. The Havana Soul may have developed a littel more sweet herb and caramel notes, but that may have also been because it was the second cigar I smoked that evening (?).

Both smokes were accompanied with a dram of Russels Reserve Rye with a splash of water. I found this to be a particularly enjoyable combination of smoking and drinking pleasure.

My question:
Are these the same cigar, just banded differently for different customers "exclusive" releases? Both cigars seemed to have very similar flavor profiles and flavor development through out the smoke was very similar. I have smoked and enjoyed these cigars occasionally for some time now, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to smoke one after the other. Both smokes were belicosos, I smoked the "Old Henry" first, then the "Havana Soul", not sure that makes any difference though. Just wondering your take on these "exclusive" smokes.