Redux: E.P. Carrillo Edición Inaugural 2009
Today we will be looking at the , a cigar I reviewed way back in August of 2009. This turned out to be one of those cigars people loved or hated for various reasons, but I loved the cigar back then, mostly due to the incredible balance and complex, albeit fairly light, flavors.
Here is what I had to say about this cigar when I smoked a Prerelease back in 2009:
“The E.P. Carrillo Edición Inaugural 2009 is the first stick to be released under the new brand. This will be a limited stick, with about 100,000 produced and sold every year.
The idea is essentially to have one core brand that will be available year-round and that will be more value based. Then every year they will have a limited edition that will be different every single year based on the best tobacco that can be found.
The E.P. Carrillo Edición Inaugural 2009 is a 5 3/8 Inches x 52 cigar, with the binder and filler coming from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The Wrapper is an experimental leaf from Ecuador and this is the first time it has been used on a cigar.
This is one of the most Balanced cigars I have tasted in quite a while. I was shocked (SHOCKED!) at how much I enjoyed it, waiting for it to get bitter or go south, only to find it was great until the end. The great burn and draw made for a highly enjoyable stick. Having said that, a pepper bomb this is not (it is definitely a mild to medium cigar). We will see if the regular production of this cigar is as good.
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The cigar is still beautifully constructed, well rolled with a great cinnamon brown wrapper that smells very strongly of dark chocolate and coffee.
Flavors were quite light and I sometimes had problems picking them out, but what I could taste was very nice with sweet cedar, nuts, leather and coffee notes dominating. There is almost no spice or pepper present, even on the retrohale, but I did get some floral notes at the very end of the stick. I smoked this in the morning, and it is a great morning smoke.
The draw was perfect for the entire smoke, but the burn was on and off, although not that bad, just not perfect. There was not much smoke production at all, which surprised me a bit.
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The Bottom Line: I was very interested to see what some aging time would do to this cigar, since it was so light (i.e. mild) to begin with, I was REALLY hoping it would retain the wonderful characteristics that made me love it in the first place. And while there was still some of the flavors I remembered present (and I still enjoyed the cigar), there is no denying that they are less prevalent then when the cigar was fresh. Still a great morning smoke, but if you have any of these in storage, I would suggest that you smoke them now (or soon), as I think they are only going to get more bland from here on out.
Original Score: 94
Redux Score: 82
Hey Brooks,
I smoked my last one yesterday afternoon aged about a year.
It was Kickass, Cinnamon, Graham cracker flavors, some spice with coco and changed to dark coco ect. it was a full med with short finish.
Conditions of reviewed stick,
A) my cat knocked it over while I was organizing the humis (cracked the first 3rd of the wrapper) or perhaps he has a magic paw. B) smoked it without any expectations
Anyways just my .02 cents going to order another box and test again.
Halfwheel.com offers way to much content!
Backpacking through Europe and still checking the updates.. Still have to get my hands on one of these sticks. Picked up some Partagas Serie D. no 4 to hold me over for the trip.
Cheers
INcredible. Looking forward to trying.
I still have one of these, guess I better put it near the top of my short list of cigars to smoke.
Never had epc's cigars...curious to try one soon
Interesting. It shows that not all cigars benefit from aging. Thanks for sharing it !
Hope they all didnt go downhill. Thanks ~ed
I have seen a few sticks degrade over time, but its supposed to be thje opposite !! Thanks for the review...
Not a big surprise. I'll stick with the Short Runs and Elencos.
What a difference!
Thanks for the review. I really enjoyed these when they first came out, I'll have to break another soon to see how mine have changed.
I like all kinds of cigars including mild To me it's situational. Having siad that the mild ones really don't improve with age. They just get flat.
Nice review Brooks! I have a few of these I was gonna try to hang on to for a special occasion but I guess I'll burn them soon.
Bummer
I only had 1 single so I'm glad I tried it when it first came out.
I wasn't a huge fan of the yammy taste when they came out.
That sucks..I have some and was going to age them...oh well I guess it's smoke time!!!!
I bought 2 boxes of the Inaugurals and have 7 sticks left. Thank goodness for the New Waves. I didn't expect much from the aging process w/ the Inaugurals, but I'm expecting good things from my Populares' resting in the humidor! Thanks for the EPC reviews this whole week.
I didn't get to smoke one until early this year and I wasn't impressed with it at all. I rather smoke the core line EPC's.
At leery we can look forward to the 2011 Limitada release!
I could use a smoke right now
I haven't tried one of these and it looks like I wont be buying some anytime.
I had a couple last year and they were a nice mild smoke.
Too mild for me starting out, and definitely the case now. Thanks for the week of EPC reviews!
Thanks for the informative review.
too bad.
Agree w the previous posts - sad to see a cigar decline w age but thanks for the heads up!
Been storing a box. Guess it's time to break them out.
I guess it's in the nature of a hand made product to be somewhat inconsistent and a bit of a gamble when it comes to the mysteries of aging. Thanks for the post... Bit of a bummer.
I cannot say that I am totally surprised by this review because I have found myself that on more than one occassion a "mild" or "mild-medium" cigar can tend to flatten out in the flavour deparment over time. I'm not sure why this happens but I can recall atleast 3 cigars on the milder end of the scale that were very nice when fresh but seem to have lost something with significant humidor time.
I cannot totally understand this....perhaps you could discuss this phenomenon with some of your fellow cigar brain trust & propose a few hypothesis.
Sad that the flavor diminished from these, it sounded like you were looking forward to smoking another too. One cigar I have never had the pleasure of smoking, but now, from the sound of it, doesn't sound very promising!
Too bad. I'll have to try one from the humidor.
Crazy to see a cigar go down that far with some age. While I know it can happen, just surprised to see it drop that far.
That's unfortunate. Want to try these anyways.
That really sucks! Thanks for the heads up!
BTW...Love that first pic!
sweet new series. i like!
Always sad to hear that time is causing a great cigar to go downhill. Thanks for the redux review.