La Aroma de Cuba
My first La Aroma de Cuba was given to me by a co-worker nearly a year ago and since that day, I’ve smoke quite a few more. As soon as I came up with the idea to launch Oak & Smoke, I was determined to make the La Aroma de Cuba my first official cigar review. I originally intended to take some pictures for this review, but found myself without a camera when the occasion to smoke my final stick came. That really was an unfortunate turn of events for reasons I’ll get to in a moment, but first on to the review.
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Rocky Patel Sungrown
This review has been a long time coming, but I just hadn’t gotten around to smoking the Rocky Patel Sun Grown Torpedo sitting in my humidor for the past four months. Fortunately, the side effect of procrastination is one an appropriately aged cigar. As a self-described fan of Rocky Patel cigars, I was definitely looking forward to giving this one a try.
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Caribou Coffee Caribou Blend K-Cup
My wife and I first discovered Caribou Coffee on a recent trip to our local K-Cup distributor. Neither of us had ever heard of the brand or that they were in fact a chain of coffee shops. Regardless, we picked up a bunch of different flavors and quickly made them a regular staple in our K-Cup stock.
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The Dalmore Single Highland Malt 12y
The Dalmore Distillery was established in 1839 by a man named Alexander Matheson and is located in Alness, Scotland. The distillery is located in northern Scotland, thus the moniker “Single Highland Malt”.
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Oban 14y
Oban was the first single malt scotch I ever tried and for this it will always occupy a special place in my heart. That first sip of single malt goodness was many years ago and since that fateful first sip I have made it a point to never buy the same scotch twice. I have in essence become scotch hobo, bouncing (virtually) from one distillery to the next; a veritable whisky vagabond. At the Aleppo Smoker a few weeks back, I had a sip of the Oban again to see if perhaps my memory was making more of it and than it actually was. That tasting brought me home and back to earth at the same time. I bought a bottle the very next day. After all, rules are made to be broken.
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The Balvenie DoubleWood 12y
This past Christmas, my wonderful wife bought me a bottle of Balvenie DoubleWood. DoubleWood is a 12 year old single malt Scotch whisky that is matured in two distinct casks throughout the life of its maturation process. It starts its journey from malt to whisky in a traditional American oak bourbon whisky cask and is then transferred to a Spanish oak cask that has been previously used to age sherry. The traditional whisky cask makes sure the DoubleWood grows up to be a fine, upstanding Scotch, while the sherry cask acts as a finishing school designed to add depth and character.
Rocky Patel Decade
The Rocky Patel Decade is a special 10th anniversary release from Rocky and the torpedo earned a 95 rating from Cigar Afficionado. Rocky himself brought a whole bunch of these cigars to give away at the Aleppo Smoker I attended back in March and I forced myself to leave it alone for a while. This past weekend I finally took it out of the humidor and fired it up.
