Perdomo Double Aged 12 Year Vintage Maduro Epicure Review
Verdict: Box Buy (4/4). I'd spend my own money on this again... no hesitation. Great smoke front to back, nothing off-putting, and enough going on to keep it interesting the whole way.
Quick note on the name before we start. Perdomo bale-ages this tobacco for 10 years, then finishes it 2 more years in white oak bourbon barrels... so you'll hear people (me included) call it the "12 year bourbon barrel aged" Perdomo. The actual name on the box is Double Aged 12 Year Vintage. Same cigar.
The Setup
- Cigar: Perdomo Double Aged 12 Year Vintage Maduro, Epicure (6 x 56)
- Street price: ~$12.50 for a single online ($13.50 MSRP... Atlantic sells true singles at $12.15)
- What I paid: $13.50 listed, $10.80 after a 20%-off code... my own money, nobody sent me this
- Storage: 69% RH in my Herf-a-Dor
- When/where: 4pm, down by the creek, little bit of a breeze
- Food beforehand: turkey and roast beef sandwich on a brioche roll, couple hours earlier
- First cigar of the day
Light Up and First Third
Sweet and a little spicy right off the light... very good start. The first third settles into sweetness and chocolate with a little spice through the retrohale, a touch of nuttiness, and only a tiny bit of bitterness lingering on the palate. The nuttiness builds about halfway through the third and everything stays true the rest of the way. No drama, just good.
Second Third
The spice settles down at the start while the sweetness and nuttiness hang around. Bitterness maybe ticked up a hair, but nothing that got my attention in a bad way. Through the middle the spice stays mild, the sweetness holds, and the nuttiness keeps creeping up. By the end of the third the nuttiness and bitterness both build a little more... still sweet, but the sweetness falls to the back seat.
Final Third
This is where it got interesting. The spice ramped up on the retrohale, but a load of nuttiness followed right behind it with mild sweetness, and the bitterness would linger a little on the palate before fading. Then, strangely, the spice died back down and the sweetness came back. By the end the retrohale spice was completely gone and I got noticeable earthiness for the first time... still sweet and nutty underneath it. A little palate drying at the very end, and that's how it finished.
Construction
- Wrapper: excellent. Very toothy, basically perfect, band came off clean, zero cracking.
- Draw: absolutely perfect... if anything maybe a hair too open, and I'm nitpicking.
- Burn: good. Three touch-ups over the smoke... one after the first ash drop, a couple more in the back half. Never wonky, just minor corrections.
- Ash: excellent, held on to the middle of the cigar. One odd thing... it didn't have that center point in the ash I'm used to seeing on Nicaraguan puros.
- Smoke output: great production the whole way.
Bottom Line
This is what I want out of a maduro. Sweet, chocolatey, nutty, with the spice moving around enough to keep you paying attention, and the flavors never turned on me late the way a lot of cigars do in the final third. The construction backed it up. Heads up though... its sun grown brother from this same line went the opposite direction on me. Review coming. Wrapper matters on this blend.
Would I smoke it again? Box Buy... the top rating I've got. This one earns a permanent spot: box on hand, regular rotation.
Best for: an afternoon where you've got 90 minutes to actually pay attention to it. And given the tobacco spent two years in bourbon barrels, this one's begging for a pour of bourbon next to it... coffee works too if it's earlier in the day.
My rating scale, one question only... would I spend my own money on this again? 4 Box Buy (box on hand, always) / 3 Five-Pack (yes, a few live in the humidor) / 2 Hand-Me-One (wouldn't buy it, wouldn't turn one down) / 1 Not Even Free (I'd rather smoke nothing).
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Perdomo Double Aged 12 Year Vintage Sun Grown Epicure Review
Verdict: Not Even Free (1/4). I put it down midway through the final third... I wouldn't take another one even for free. The bitterness just kept building until it ran the whole show. Which stings a little, because the Maduro from this exact same line was an easy Box Buy for me.
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