Vacuum sealing results

[Mad Dawg]

With the renewed interest in vacuum sealing cigars intended for long-term aging showing up here, I wanted to post a report on some tangible findings. Although I've spelled out my reasons for following this path in other threads, I wanted to pull this out separately because it's a step away from the theoretical for me.

My good friend Gary (Benecio) is, as far as I know, the person who originally came up with the idea of using vacuum sealing to radically limit the amount of oxygen that cigars are exposed to as they age. Oxygen destroys a wide range of fragile aromatic compounds, that's simple fact. Gary's thinking is that such compounds are likely what lend much of the aromatic essences to the flavor profiles of young cigars, and young Cuban cigars in particular. I've known Gary long enough, and smoked enough cigars that he's gifted to me over the years, and talked to him at sufficient length, to have complete faith in his opinions concerning all things habanos-related. It was, therefore, pretty easy for me to make the decision to vacuum-seal those habanos I bought with the specific intent of aging for 5 or more years.

I sealed my first boxes of cigars in July 2004, which means those cigars (Partagas Piramides EL, Partagas Serie D No. 3 EL) are now nearing the 5-year mark. I've sealed many other boxes since then (Sir Winstons, Quai d'Orsay Coronas, '98 Bolivar Petite Coronas and La Flor de Cano Coronas, Partagas Petite Corona cabs, and lots of others), but haven't cracked them open for tasting because I was shooting for that 5-year mark. I haven't worried at all that this experiment could go wrong, though the little voice in the back of my head has often suggested that they ought to be smoking reeeeally well right about now.... I hate that voice, because I know that once I break a box, I often find that they disappear at an alarming rate.

Anyway, enough intro. A couple of weeks ago, Gary sent me a Bolivar Belicoso Fino that he had kept vacuum sealed for 7 years. He wanted me to get a better feel for the benefits of this process, and he asked me to let him know what I thought. Hmmmm.....how best to put this?

In the immortal words of Hendrix: HOLY HORSE FUCK!!

This cigar was a revelation. Now granted, this was an old-school BBF, and although Gary hasn't told me what the box code was, it couldn't have been younger than 2002. It was beautifully constructed, enrobed in a nearly flawless light colorado wrapper, lightly sheened with oil and mottled with slightly darker oils coming up through the wrapper from the binder. The aroma was just outstanding - the cigar still smelled fresh. I took a conservative, straight clip, and the draw was perfect, just the right amount of resistance. Pre-light flavors were complex, Cuban all the way, and promised great things to come. Right from the first draws, I knew this was going to be a winner. In order to keep this from turning into a novel, I'll try to keep the description brief.

To my tastes, BBFs really benefit from age. They are more approachable when fresh than some cigars, but can taste kind of "green" until they get a couple of years on them. Fresh BBFs do have nice flavor characteristics...kind of a brash prickliness on the tongue with highly accentuated Bolivar flavors. With age, they develop an elegant complexity that I really like. This cigar combined the best aspects of both fresh and aged BBFs: it was still kind of brash and still tasted fresh, but there was no "greenness" in it at all, no harshness. It was very aromatic, yet very refined and complex at the same time. The smoke was dense, and made me understand what Gary means when he talks about "chewy" smoke.

And it changed. I smoked it very slowly (an hour and 15 minutes from light to 1/2" nub), and throughout that time different flavors moved up to the front of the profile, then became more subtle as other elements moved forward. Cedar, leather, faint notes of what might have been cinnamon and citrus and cocoa and vanilla, always anchored by a solid core of BOLIVAR tobacco. I finished it almost an hour ago, and although I'm hungry, I'm not rushing to get dinner together because the finish is just amazing.

In all, this cigar was everything I had hoped it might be. I went into this determined to find any "off" flavors that might be present, but I never found a one. At about the 3" mark, I made a slight touch-up to correct a slight unevenness in the burn, and shaved off a thin sliver from the cap as I was starting to get a little tar buildup. That's perfectly normal for a figurado with a narrow clip, and took nothing away from the cigar at all. The total impression was simply outstanding.

This cigar achieved what I have hoped from the beginning to get from vacuum sealing: melding the "verdant" flavors of a young Cuban cigar with the elegance and complexity of an aged Cuban cigar.

Awesome experience, Gary. Thank you, my brother.