A while back Cathcam13 posted about placing cigars in a Rubbermaid container along with a shot glass of rum for a few weeks.
Well, I decided to try a variation of that myself.
So as to not bury the lede...HUGE success!
Instead of Rum I used one of my favorite libations, Basil Hayden Dark Rye. It is an outstanding rye whisky with just a bit of port in the blend!
For cigars, I used the unsmoked RP Mulligan Aces that were gifted to me by a well-meaning (but very confused and Rocky Obsessed) friend. I posted about these incredibly disappointing cigars earlier. This is the box sampler of 10 "Aces" that you can get from the OMB3 place usually for $30 with free shipping. The Mulligan Aces appear to be an exclusive to that site. You get two each of the "Eagle Reserve," the "Fairway," the "Clubhouse," The "Master Collection" and what is apparently the basic Mulligan, the "Private Reserve" They are all the 7x50 "Whiff" size.
As a reminder, other than the fairlway/candella, I found these "Aces" to be unsmokable past the first third. Although they started off ok, they went downhill after the start. Much past the first couple of inches, they just tasted really bad.
So I popped the unsmoked ones into a container on top of a folded paper towel with a shot glass of the Dark Rye, sealed it up, and left it sit for 4 weeks. Over the past weekend, I decided to try them out.
The first one up 'twas the Eagle. The OMB3 site compares it to the RP Decade: "A premium amalgam of Dominican and Nicaraguan long-fillers is enrobed in a silky San Andrés Maduro wrapper...."
Out of the container, it seemed like it might be a bit over-humidified from the booze humidification. Probably would have been a good idea to let it "dry out" a bit, but was in no mood to wait.
WOW, the cigar was amazing. Dark, rich, complex. Different flavor notes constantly come in and out and all of them great. Right off the bat it reminded me of the Camacho American Barrel Aged, it was that good. Like the Camacho, if you know what you are smoking you can defiantly pick out flavors that are being influenced by the whisky, but I bet you would be unlikely to be able to identify what exactly that flavor actually was coming through if you had no idea beforehand what you were smoking. The heavy humidification did mean I had to pay more attention to it and give it some extra puffs to keep going at times, but it was worth it. No constructions problems.
Next out of the Box was the Masters Collection. These are supposed to be similar to the Rocky Patel Fifty with a Habano wrapper. Once again, the flavors were quite different than the un-infused version but on a blind test, I don't think I would have been able to say - "whisky!"
This infused cigar was what I call "savory" some salt, lots of nice smoke, chewy, meaty. Made you salivate and think of having a big steak. Very enjoyable taste. It did have some construction issues in the last third as the wrapper wanted to unravel. This might have been exacerbated by the whisky humidification, but, as I recall, the un-infused one had that issue as well.
Third out of the box was the Clubhouse. The OMB3 site wants to compare it to the Rocky Patel Vintage 1999 with Dominican and Nicaraguan long-fillers and a Connecticut wrapper.
Bingo! This is the first one where I can honestly say right from the start that this tasted like booze -- BUT, it didn't taste like whisky, it tasted like Rum, specifically a darker, sweeter, Rum. Possibly it was the port in the Dark Rye, but I would wager that anyone that tried this blind would say it was a rum-infused cigar. Now although you could definitely taste the "rum" it was not overpowering and mixed well with the other flavors including a citrus tang that would regularly pop up. In all lighter and sweeter than the first two but also very enjoyable.
Bonus for me! I had thought I originally smoked one of each of the 5 styles of cigars and infused the other 5. But apparently, I had smoked both of the "Private Reserve" versions in the first go around, so I had the second infused Eagle to enjoy. I did let this one sit out for a bit before lighting up and it burned very well, did not have to babysit it like the first one. The flavors pretty much the same, again reminding me of the Camacho Barrel Aged. This is a cigar that, once infused, I would happily smoke on a regular basis.
I saved the Fairway candella for last as I was not sure how this one would turn out. Candellas are generally not my thing, but you have to give RP credit with this one. IF you are trying to make a candella cigar, this is what it should taste like. Hit 'em up with the big green-tea, grass, chlorophyll flavors! Let the smoker know this ain't what they are used to smoking. Shout to the world, this is different!
The infused version still had some of those flavors, but they were much milder, not nearly as much of the grass and tea. A bit of salt. Overall pretty mild. Would be a very good "morning with coffee" cigar. This presents a dilemma. For my tastes personally, I would be more likely to smoke the infused version than the un-altered one. However, the infusion really took away much of what the cigar was all about in the first place. Its like those stories of some mentally unstable genius who then is given some drug that makes him more "normal." He can now function in society, but has lost what made him special.
So the Cathcam experiment was a huge success. In all, it "saved" three of the four cigars (and, for me, improved the 4th), turning them from trash* to very good smokes and one of them - the Eagle - turned into a great one. The Eagle infused cigar was so good, in fact, that I would consider buying more of them purely for the purpose of whisky-boxing them again. They go for a little over $2 per cigar usually at the OMB3 place. That is an amazing bargain post-booze-box.
However, before I buy more Eagles, I am going to try the infusion experiment with some other low-end sticks to see what I get. Next up some of the $1 mystery bundle cigars from the OMB3 place and maybe a 5 Vegas, LOL!
*[To be fair, it turns out I had not smoked the Eagle BEFORE they were whisky-boxed, so I do not know what it was like before the experiment. Maybe it was great without the whisky. Given the others, however, I kind of doubt it. It was certainly great after the whisky!]
