Continuing with our Padrón week today we have a blast from the past, a Padrón 1964 Diplomatico Maduro from the late 1990’s! It is unclear exactly how old this cigar is, but we sent a picture of it to Jorge Padrón, and he confirmed that its pre-2000 based on the band design… so this cigar is at least 11 years old. Many of you are familiar with the Padrón History so I won’t get into that, but I find this cigar very interesting because Padrón has released many Anniversary cigars in recent years like the 44^th, 45^th and 46^th Family Reserves, and those cigars contain tobacco that has been aged for around 10 years. We thought it would be interesting to review a Padrón that was rolled right around that same time frame and see if there are any major differences.

A lot of you must be thinking “What is the difference in the bands that makes it easy to tell that its pre 2000?” Well, if you look at the picture below, you can see some obvious differences. At a quick glance perhaps you might not notice, but if you smoke a lot of Padróns I am sure you will see…

The Band on the left is from the pre-2000 cigar and the band on the right is from a current band…all Padrón cigars after or around the year 2000 bear the markings of the band on the right. As you can see the older band on the right has the more Spanish traditional words “Aniversario Serie” where as the new design on the right has the English words “Anniversary Series”. Another major difference is the coloring, the old design has a yellow color between the gold and the red where as the new design has white in place of the yellow. The older Padrón cigar also does not contain a serial number secondary band like the new ones do and the Padrón font itself appears to be slightly different.

_______________________________________________________________________

Enough of all that, lets get to the review…

• Cigar Reviewed: Padrón 1964 Aniversario Serie Diplomatico
• Factory: Tabacos Cubanica S.A.
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Wrapper: Nicaragua
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Size: 7 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 50
• Vitola: Churchill
• MSRP: N/A – $13.00 (Current price)
• Release Date: Pre 2000
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked for Review: 1

Initially, the first thing you notice about the cigar is the extreme box press. It also has a very dark chocolate Maduro wrapper with a seamless wrap and a lot of tooth that gives it a rough feel. The cigar is extremely firm but doesn’t feel overfilled at all (this is a common trait with Padróns). I also noticed that the cap is very sloppy looking and it appears to have a double cap. I might be mistaken, but recent Padróns appear to have a single cap only where this one clearly has two caps. The cigar itself is a touch dry, most likely from all the years it’s been aging in someone’s humidor.

The Pre light aroma is very cedary with a nice aged tobacco/hay mixture. The pre-light draw is full of cedar as well as a fruity floral note that I can’t quite put my finger on…it’s almost like orange peel but with a airy floral note to it.

_______________________________________________________________________

Starting off in the First Third, the cigar is a lot more flavorful and peppery than I expected, Initial flavors are deep with some bite to them, espresso and dark chocolate mostly. There is absolutely no spice whatsoever. The flavors and sensation through the nose is cedary and mild. There are actually hints of bitterness here and there that are very surprising to me given the age.

Coming into the Second Third the cigar does a complete 180. The flavors become very smooth and flavorful! The profile is made up of chocolate, roasted coffee bean, cedar and a very pleasant nutty flavor on the finish. The smoke is thick and lush and there is a real nice creaminess through the nose. This is a very nice transition and worlds apart from the first third…

Finishing up in the Final Third the cigars doesn’t change up a whole lot from the last but that is not a bad thing because I am really enjoying it now. There are rich chocolate and coffee flavors as well as a nice mellow pepper, nut and creaminess on the finish. The bitterness that I experienced in the first third does not return and even down to the nub the cigar failed to show anymore bitterness or anything. Indeed a nice cigar from the second third and on…

_______________________________________________________________________

Final Notes:

• I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect with this cigar. I had a feeling it might be a little too mild after all these years and don’t get me wrong it wasn’t strong at all but It had a ton of flavor still. I would even suspect that this cigar has a few more years to mature to be the best it can be. I can’t really figure out what happened in the first third…it was bitter, muted and unbalanced but as the cigar burned it completely corrected itself flavor and balance wise.
• Final Smoking time was 1 hour 40 minutes.

_______________________________________________________________________

The Bottom Line: Scoring this cigar is difficult because it pulled such A 180 Degree turn on me after the first third. If the cigar had continued on the way it was in the beginning this would get a really low score however because of the way it performed in the final two thirds it will certainly average it out. While this was an enjoyable cigar and certainly fun to smoke because of its age I still would opt for a newer padron. There is just something about the way padron has been making cigars for the last 5-6 years that makes them incredible. I am not sure if the blend has been tweaked over the years or not but I feel that a newer padron is more flavorful and has that little bit of spice that I have come to love in their cigars. Overall this was a good cigar but just not quite as complex or flavorful as a recent Padrón 1964.

Final Score: 80