That is Joseph R. Gannascoli, who played Vito on the Sopranos, and I at a Cugine event at Vino and Stogies. He then came to the January meeting of the Havana Nights Cigar Club, where everyone had a great time.I went to Vino and Stogies on Saturday to relax after a day at work, and to watch some NFL playoff action. I spent a good while with Bob, one of the owners, trying to find a cigar that I had not tried a vitola of. We settled on the Exile, a cigar by Cuban Imports.
The cigar is packaged in white tissue paper, which is printed to look like newspaper. It is a reprint of the day that JFK signed the embargo with Cuba. Interesting fact-the night before that, he had his cheif of staff go out and buy all the H. Upmann Petit Corona's that he could find. JFK was a big cigar guy. Remember all the pictures with one of his hands in his suitpocket? Usually it was holding a cigar-even then, politicians hated getting their pictures taken smoking.
Upon unwrapping, you find a dark cigar with thick veins.
Vital Stats:
WRAPPER: Ecuadorian Sun Grown Sumatra
BINDER & FILLER: Nicaraguan / Nicaraguan
Length/Ring: 5 1/2 X 52
Shape: Robusto
Strength: Medium
Prelight, this cigar was tight, with some very sweet notes. It reminded me of a RP Summer Series, which is not a bad thing. Lighting it released even more sweetness, along with some peppery flavors. I knew this was going to be a good smoke. It was very tight, nearly too tight to smoke, but I elected to give it a chance to open up-it had been aging for about a year.
The first third yielded berries, nuts, and some pepper. No one flavor was too extreme, and they all balanced. This cigar was smoking super slow-looking back at my tasting notes I underlined that phrase more than once.
As it opened up into the second third, about 30 minutes after lighting it, I got some mocha flavors. I was drinking water during this test, so I know that it wasnt an after effect of the drink. There was no real big change in the other flavors, other then detecting a bit more pepper toward the end of the third.
The final third saw a perfect draw and perfect flavors. The flavor profile did not change too much. If I smoked it too fast, which I did once, I got a ton of pepper, but a minute in the ashtray brought everything back into alignment.
The Exile runs $10 MN, if you can find it. I strongly reccomend this cigar for someone who loves medium bodied cigars, or someone looking for something a bit bolder than the milds that they are smoking.
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