A fellow inmate (kfish) and myself started up a blog this month and we didn't see a review for this cigar yet so we thought we'd throw our first review up here! Let us know what you think...
Image
Rocky Patel Renaissance Toro
Size: 6×52
I am a Rocky Patel whore. I haven’t tried all of his blends (there are so many who could?), but of those I have had, I tend to buy boxes of them. The Decade is by far my favorite blend by Rocky to date. I just wanted to issue that warning before the review started.
There, I feel better now.
Now, the Renaissance is made at the El Paraiso factory in Danli, Honduras. The cigar features a silky four year old Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper surrounding a binder from Jalapa, Nicaragua, and a blend of rare Nicaraguan filler tobaccos including a rare ligero leaf from an “undisclosed” region of Central America. Not much else could be found about this blend during my research.
Appearance & Construction
I have been holding onto this Toro sized cigar since mid-October. It has been resting in my humidor for about 3 months now. The cigar looks great, the wrapper is a nice light to medium brown. There are no flaws that I could see; the wrapper leaf was pretty smooth with very fine veins. The cap was almost seamless. I had to look closely when cutting the head as not to snip too far down. The cigar was nice and firm with no soft spots to be found. The band was what I would call “classy,” a very nice gold leaf with Rocky’s signature RP in the middle.
Nose & Taste
The cigar gave off a very nice tobacco smell, a faint sweetness and some earth with a touch of barnyard. I couldn’t wait to fire this baby up. I used a single torch lighter and the foot toasted evenly. Took a few puffs and we were ready to go. Right away there was some pepper that hit me and I was expecting this to be a full-bodied smoke. Once I got about an inch and a half into the cigar, the pepper began to fade and turned into a nice mellow, creamy flavor. Almost like a creamy vanilla. A little over 2 inches in, it fully settled and continued the rest of the length of the cigar with the creaminess along with a nutty-like earthiness.
Final Notes
Overall, this was a very nice cigar. It has great construction and some nice complex flavors. I would have no problems starting my morning smoking one of these. Another thing I have to say is that this cigar put off huge billows of smoke without even trying. You’ve gotta love that. I will definitely be trying more of these and if they all give consistent results, I’ll probably be purchasing a box of these as well.
Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Overall Smoking Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
Hoosier Herfers
[Reply]
Originally Posted by Ratters:
Supposedly these are just a rebanded Edge Sumatra, with the commensurate price increase. I love the ES, easily the best RP out there. I'm looking forward to trying one of these someday.
:-) I heard that as well. I still have some Edge Sumatras left but I'll have to pick up a few more Renaissances to see just how close they are.
[Reply]
Rocky Patel is my pimp and I smoke anything he puts out,,,,haven't had this one yet but will absolutely try it as I have had my eye out. Thanks for the review!
[Reply]
Originally Posted by Ratters:
Supposedly these are just a rebanded Edge Sumatra, with the commensurate price increase. I love the ES, easily the best RP out there. I'm looking forward to trying one of these someday.
Just a rumor. It does have a Sumatra wrapper, but the blend is a little different.
This might be one of my next smokes coming up.
[Reply]
Originally Posted by GTsetGO:
Just a rumor. It does have a Sumatra wrapper, but the blend is a little different.
Had another Renaissance and an Edge Sumatra and there may be a small similarity but they are definitely different blends.
[Reply]
