Alec Bradley Tempus Quadrum

The Tempus was rated ‘94’ by Cigar Insider and named one of the Top 25 Cigars of the Year; in fact, this stick is quite possibly the crowning achievement of Alec Bradley Cigars. The dark and leathery Habano-seed wrapper hails from a small tobacco field located on the border of Nicaragua and Honduras, and delivers the rich and hearty flavors of Honduras. The wrapper cloaks a complex mixture of Cuban-seed long-fillers grown in both Nicaragua and Honduras. The cigar is thick and may challenge even a guillotine cutter, but cut off only 1/8th of an inch and you can look forward to a great draw. The Tempus Quadrum isn’t for someone who hasn’t smoked many cigars. Initially, it hits you with some definite pepper before some coffee and chocolate flavors predominate. As you get into this smoke, rich nutty and earthy notes vie for your attention. By the last third, the cigar morphs into full-bodied, but it never gets overly harsh. The finish is long and peppery with an enjoyable sweetness. Pair it with a Sazerac.

Honduras has been a tobacco growing and cigar manufacturing area for hundreds of years, but it was the Communist revolution in Cuba that really put Honduras on the map. In the 1960s, many Cuban cigar makers fled their homeland and arrived in Honduras to re-establish their way of life. The immigrants took advantage of the climate, soil, and geography, which were well-suited to tobacco growing, and began producing high quality cigars. The center of the Honduran cigar industry is the city of Danli and the nearby Jamastran Valley. The majority of the world’s pure Corojo tobacco is grown here, now that Cuba has stopped production of this iconic, spicy, and rich variety in favor of Corojo hybrids. Other important areas of Honduran cigar production include the Talanga Valley, Copan, and Trojes.