Rocky Patel Number 6

The vitola gets you interested and the flavor profile keeps your attention; this cigar has the goods. The vitola is enticing and looks like a longer corona or shorter lancero. To me, a corona is superior to a lancero, but with all the love that lanceros get this may be the best of both worlds and helps get me excited about reviewing the cigar.

The wrapper has dark splotches of a maduro color. The splotches are evenly distributed over the entire wrapper which also has a nice medium oily sheen and an overall (tiny) toothiness. Both samples had plenty of bumps and veins, but nicely applied wrappers with hidden seams. The caps are well applied and neat with ample allowance for a cut running well below the shoulder. The pack is medium to tight with zero soft spots. The bunch is even and reveals a number of different color fillers that make up this blend. The samples had no blemishes, but did have two or three small black spots that stood out.

To start off the session, I used a guillotine cutter and a butane soft flame. As I got into the smoke, I noticed that the burn was slightly wavy on both samples, which can happen with small ring gauge cigars. Neither burn got bad enough to warrant touch-ups and the waviness regularly evened itself out. Don't rush this one and keep a steady cadence going, once you find a timing that works, and it should smoke just fine. With that thinner ring gauge in mind, the cigar does hold onto a decent ash pretty easily.

The flavor profile is outstanding and leans as heavily toward a tropical experience as a non flavored cigar can probably push a blend. The flavors complement each other and work well with the vitola. There is a little bit of magic that happens in the final third with the melding of flavors, the retrohale and the smoke texture; enjoy if you try this blend! The dried fruit notes, mellow oak and vanilla finish is reminiscent of a good dark rum. So my pairing recommendation is dark rum...but I can also see Cream Soda Dr Pepper going nicely with the blend and a tropical trail mix if you really want to pull the fruit notes from the cigar. However this unique blend with its nice vitola, is certainly interesting enough that water would be just fine.

Overall this cigar manages to provide solid construction with a nice vitola and then goes above and beyond with the great flavor profile.

Note: Do you readers care about smoke time? It's a simple addition to make if you do! Please leave your thoughts it in the comments.

Wrapper:  Honduran-Grown Corojo / Binder: Honduran / Filler: Nicaraguan

Vitola: Corona / Size: 6 × 44

Factory: El Paraiso / Country of Origin: Honduras

Nuttiness and black tea

Almond and dried topical fruit (papaya)

Raisin, oak and graham cracker

Plum, sweet cream, vanilla, wheat and oak. Cream, vanilla and a mellow white pepper on the retrohale.

Cream, caramel, oak, licorice, raisin, citrus, vanilla, leather and a slight graphite note. Toasted cream and vanilla retrohale.

Caramel, leather, orange peel, licorice, graphite, toasted almond and oak. Vanilla retrohale.

The reviewing process at Cigar Public ensures that each cigar is reviewed blindly. This cigar was sent without any bands and without any information about the cigar. Cigar Public does not attempt to influence or alter any scores given by any of our reviewers.