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