Aged: Nub Habano 466

Hard to believe it was a year ago (or there abouts) that I started my experiment in cigar aging. I had two fairly large humidors (along with a smaller desktop model that I ended up using for flavored sticks) and decided that one would be my "everyday" cigars and the other would be for "aging" cigars. I started building up my collection of aging sticks with purchases I made on the internet. I would buy a 5 pack, smoke 2 or 3 in the next week or two, and put the rest in the aging humidor where I would forget about them for at least a year. I put labels on the sticks so I would remember when I put them in.

Last night, I opened the first of my aged smokes, a Nub Habano first put down to age in July 2008. The aroma when I took off the cello wrapper was still very rich and strong--a whole lot of cocoa and coffee. The wrapper was slightly oily, especially to the touch. Everything looked in order, but the real proof was in the flavor department.

Upon lighting, I found that the Nub still had plenty of spice and that the flavors were predominantly of black coffee and black pepper. As I progressed, the spice held up very well and the flavor tended to go more in the leathery and nutty direction. There was still plenty of power in this rolled up bundle of tobacco leaves, too!

This cigar started life as a strong, spicy cigar and a year in storage has done nothing to minimize that. I do not know that I would characterize it as better than it was a year ago, but the extra year of age definitely did no harm. I have another Nub Habano from last July that I will let go for at least six more months and then there are some other Nubs of different varieties from later last year; I will be interested to see where any and all of those go as time marches on.