I met an agent for Emanuel Cigars online. Her company is HERE. It’s a bit difficult to find your way to the cigar vitola and price list, but if you contact her she will send you a pdf of the list with prices. After looking over their product (see links above), I ended up buying two each of two of their cigars. You will notice two things about their product. First they have a lot of cigars, and second each cigar comes in four or five vitolas! What I purchased was their “Classic Premium” Petit Corona ($8) and the “Hemingway” Petit Corona ($10). These are not inexpensive cigars.
At this link you will find some more information about the company and their tobacco. The owner, Nelson Medina is I presume the blender, and he seems to know what he is doing. Both of these cigars were very flavorful. All Emanuel Cigars seem to be Dominican puros and come exclusively from farms in the North of the Dominican Republic; a place called the Cibao Valley. There is nothing on the website that says anything specific about the wrapper, binder, and filler. It seems not to be written for the aficionado who expects at least that much. So how do they smoke?
Classic Premium
Vitola: Petit Corona 5 x 42 ($8 retail)
Wrapper/binder/filler: Dominican
Cold smell: Grass, flowers, faint barnyard, sweet
Cold draw/taste: Black tea, some vegetal mushroom combined with a flower sweetness
Construction: Evenly packed if a little light. The wrapper a little rough, medium brown. After cutting draw was excellent throughout. Both of the sample cigars canoe a bit at the beginning, but a single correction takes care of it. Smoke output is nice and thick. Stays that way throughout the smoke. Both samples required a little correction here and there but I give them an “A” for construction on this one.
Strength: Mild to medium all the way through. This would be a good cigar for a casual smoke and for beginners. Will not overwhelm.
Flavor: Leather, flowers, warm sweet woodiness, nutty. No pepper to speak of on the taste until near the end, but there is some on the retrohale. The flavors include a certain meaty sourness that I find a lot in Dominican tobaccos. I don’t like it at all when it dominates the flavor, but here it mingles with enough sweetness, almost raw-sugar like, that it works. All the various flavors, even a cinnamon-like warm spice come and go throughout. The stick keeps its flavors until the nub. All good. Smoke time was about 50 minutes, about right for a small stick.
I think Emanuel has a winner here depending on what you think of that meaty note that pops in on every other puff. I’m not a big fan, but there are smokers who are attracted to that very flavor. There is a reason, after all, the Dominican Republic sells a lot of cigars.
Hemmingway
Vitola: Petit Corona Figurado 4.5 x 42 ($10 retail)
Wrapper/binder/filler: Dominican
Cold smell: Manure, black tea, barnyard, grass
Cold draw/taste: Pepper on the wrapper, barnyard
Construction: OK, figurados are harder to roll than parejos. This tiny one (both samples I smoked) was way too tight. The first was almost plugged. I had to use a draw tool, something tough to do on such a small cigar. The second had a better draw, but was still pretty tight all the way along by my standards. On both of these I had to cut off the little foot extension to get it lit. For what it’s worth, the wrapper, a dark brown, was smoothly applied, pack was even.
Once it got going I had to fight the first one all the way along. The second smoked better requiring only a little correction here and there. Smoke output was fine once fully lit, but had to pull at these a lot more to get that smoke. I can only give Emanuel a “B” for construction — well wrapped, even pack, way too hard to draw. I like figurados, but if you don’t do them right it doesn’t do any good.
Strength: Medium
Flavor: Again Mr. Medina seems to know what he is doing with tobaccos. There were sweet woods here, brown sugar, roasted nut, and even something like candied fruit in here. There is also that Dominican sourness I don’t particularly like, but as with the other cigar, it melds pretty well with everything else here alternating with sugary sweetness and diminishing toward the end of the cigar. Lots of flavors melding on the retrohale and pepper too. Again a very flavorful cigar if a little bit of a fight to smoke.
The first of these smoked only 37 minutes probably because I had to correct it a lot. The second was better, smoked straighter with but a little correction and lasted 47 minutes. For $10 I think these need a little more work.
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All in all, good flavors in both of these smokes especially if you like that “Dominican twang” as some have called it. Use the links above if you want to check out the company and try their smokes.
Ruminations 