Video review HERE.
(Description portions taken from Cigar-Coop.com website)
Altadis debuted this cigar in January touting that this will take Henry Clay to the next level. The new line is the latest creation from Atladis’ Grupo de Maestros team.
Stalk Cut is a harvesting method where the entire stalk, containing all of the tobacco leaves is cut (as opposed to priming the leaves individually from the stalk). The stalk is then air cured in a curing barn.
The Henry Clay Stalk Cut features a 2012 vintage Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper over a 2010 Vintage Dominican Piloto binder, and a filler consisting of 2012 Vintage Dominican Olor, 2012 Vintage Dominican Piloto, and 2013 Vintage Nicaraguan Criollo. The cigar will be available in three sizes – a Gran Corona, Robusto, and Toro.
The Grupo de Maestros represents some of Altadis’ most skilled cigar makers. Over the past few years, they have been involved on some high profile Altadis releases
Blend Profile:
Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf, 2012 Vintage
Binder: Dominican Piloto, 2010 Vintage
Filler: Dominican Olor, 2012 Vintage; Dominican Piloto, 2012 Vintage; Nicaraguan Criollo, 2013 Vintage
Country of Origin: Dominican Republic (Tabacalera de Garcia)
Vitolas Available:
The Henry Clay Stalk Cut is available in three sizes. Each cigar features an uncut footer. The cigars are packaged in 20 count boxes with the cigars divided into two ten count bundles.
Gran Corona (w pig-tail): 6 x 46
Robusto: 5 x 50
Toro: 6 x 54 REVIEWED TODAY
The cigar is nice looking with a shiny, oily wrapper. It is box pressed with an unfinished foot. It has a nice, dense feel in the hand.
The test draw after cutting the cap was very good. The initial flavors were sweet blackberry with brown sugar, sweet cream, and dark coffee notes. There is a lot of sweetness in this cigar and it comes across as dark noted.
About one inch in the notes are like I described but now there are additional orange citrus notes and butter notes combining with the cream. The pepper is a white pepper rated at a 7 1/2. The finish has a lot of blackberry notes with cream and some lingering white pepper; not a lot of pepper but some. The cigar is medium bodied. There is quite a bit of sweetness on both ends.
At the midpoint you can tell you will get a lot of burn time. Nothing has changed in regards to the flavor notes but you get more of the citrus notes and butter notes. The other flavors are the same but you get a little more of these two. The cigar is still medium bodied. It is slowly moving up the scale but at this point is is medium bodied.
The cigar ended at around 1 hour 45 minutes. You really get your money's worth. Things have changed from the midpoint to now. The pepper has changed over to a black pepper. The blackberry notes and citrus notes are almost overshadowed by the brown sugar notes. Some may say it tastes more like a sweet cedar but I can still pick out the blackberry and citrus notes. The butter notes and coffee notes really came out in the final third. The finish is unchanged. The cigar ended at medium to full bodied and it hit around the final third. To be honest, I am surprised at this cigar. Henry Clay has been around a long time but it was never a "big" cigar but this cigar breaks that mold. It was very good and had some very nice flavors. The only negative I could say is I would have wished the strength had moved up sooner. The price point is very good at $8 to $8.50 each depending on size. This has been a very good cigar. Look for them anywhere that sells Altadis cigars, and that's just about everywhere.
Score: 93
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