Rocky Patel Decade Robusto

Starting out as an entertainment lawyer and slowly making the transition into cigar maker, Rocky Patel not only made it through the cigar boom of the 1990’s but has settled into being one of the most renowned cigar makers around. To commemorate his ten years in the cigar business, he released the Rocky Patel Decade. This amazing cigar was named as one of the Top 25 Cigars of the Year in 2008 and given a 95 rating from Cigar Aficionado. Thankfully, this unforgettable smoke is just as good now as it was in its original release.

Made at Nestor Plasencia’s famous El Paraiso factory in Honduras, the Decade is rich, smooth and full of flavor. Using a blend that has been called his best yet, the Decade is chocked full of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-fillers, bound with a Nicaraguan long-leaf and finished with a dark and oily Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper. The result is a smoke rich and creamy in texture with flavors of bourbon, oak, wood, black pepper, and coffee, with a leather core and finishing with a lingering hickory sweetness. Pair it with a vanilla stout or a Johnnie Walker Black in the cool afternoon and you will quickly want more.

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.