Rocky Patel The Edge B52

As club members know, Rocky Patel is well known for making some of the best stogies today including his Vintage and Edge lines, all of which have received 90+ ratings from Cigar Aficionado magazine. The band at the foot accentuates the stogie’s length and beauty, if not strength, so get your favorite smoking chair ready. You’re about to experience the Edge, a well-aged powerhouse. The blend is a dazzling array of superior, aged premium tobaccos including ample Ligero. This cigar is a testament to the blending and cigar-making skills of famed duo Rocky Patel and Nestor Plasencia. Heads-up: ads for the cigar say ‘for professional smokers only’—the Edge is no doubt one of the stronger cigars on the market. However, the power of this full-bodied stick is controlled, its strength extraordinarily well-balanced and its flavor extremely smooth—all significant achievements for any blender crafting such a full-tilt blend. Trust you won’t be overpowered by a potent blow to the palate. Instead the Edge’s crisp flavors mature and coalesce at just the right moment, allowing you to gradually appreciate its complexity and strength. In the end, you’re left with a full-flavored blast of spicy, well-rounded accents that fully engage the most experienced palates.

The construction is nothing short of flawless; the draw even. The wrapper is a spicy, mucho-robust Corojo leaf with a dual binder from Nicaragua and Honduras. On the inside, the blend is said to be top secret, but Rocky did reveal that there are some Panamanian and Nicaraguan fillers. Expect voluminous clouds of smoke. From the very first puff the Edge is incredibly smooth. The flavor is rich and leathery—with notes of caramel and cocoa—but without bite. A few inches into the cigar its complexity really begins—the variations in the flavor are what set this cigar apart from countless others. The finish is dry and long with a hint of pepper. It’s easy to see why Rocky Patel’s cigars are held in such high regard and score ratings in the stratosphere. After a rich, satisfying dinner, smoke this with an espresso roast.

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.