Honduras
I finally succumbed to Rocky. I gotta be honest. I’ve always been more than a little reluctant to purchase Rakesh “Rocky” Patel’s cigars. When his Indian Tabac first came on the market in the late ’90s, I bought a couple of boxes, ’cause I thought the marketing was clever. The cigars, however, didn’t impress. I think I’ve still got an unopened full box, almost a decade old. When I inquired about Patel’s manufacturing facility, I was duly informed that Rocky contracted for production; that he actually didn’t make cigars. He marketed and sold cigars made by others with his brand. Apparently, the cigars in which I didn’t find any favor were virtual clones of Astral and Don Tomas from U.S. Cigar. So I’ve stayed away until recently, after hearing a multitude of glowing reports of Patel’s latest creations.
It’s pretty clear that Rocky Patel has learned a heck of a lot in the last decade. Recently, with buyer’s resistance gone numb, I finally bought a bundle of Rocky Patel Sun Grown Factory Select Torpedos from Famous. (Rumour has it that these were made in Nestor Plasencia’s factory.) After delivery, I put them to rest, to stabilize for a couple of weeks.
Last night and this morning, I randomly grabbed a stick from the bundle. The ad copy reads that these are covered with a five year old sun grown wrapper from Ecuador, Rosado in color. I think cigar ad copy and the tooth fairy have 10 points of commonality. (Get the drift?) I don’t know if these wrappers are five years or five months old. Rosado? Rosado to me indicates a definite reddish hue. These cigars are deep dark; not maduro deep dark, but the color that you really want sun grown to be.
I don’t know what Factory “Select” means. They came in a bundle with no bands; yet they’re not advertised as Segundos. The wrappers were applied as cleanly and neatly as any cigar I’ve smoked over the past 4+ decades. And these cigars were heavy with tobacco, rich delicious, full bodied tobacco.
Down to the nuts, this is a terrific full bodied cigar. Kudos to Patel and whomever actually manufactured this smoke.
– RSteve (Herfers Paradise)
Executive Editor
Gary Korb has been writing and editing content for CigarAdvisor.com since its debut in 2008. An avid cigar smoker for over 30 years, he has worked on the marketing side of the premium cigar business as a Sr. Copywriter, blogger, and Executive Editor of Cigar Advisor. A graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, prior to his career in the cigar business, Gary worked in the music and video industry as a marketer and a publicist.
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