I'm a real nerd and I'm damn proud of it. I love talking about fermentation processes or philosophizing about ester transformations during barrel storage. Exploring new sensory worlds also gives me enormous joy. There are few people with whom I can exchange taste experiences better than with my dear friend Reinhard Pohorec.
When we occasionally enjoyed a cigar together, we came up with the idea of creating a line that would go perfectly with the cigar. The liquid equivalence to the pleasure of smoking is not that easy to determine: the smoke is already a great sensory challenge. The tasting, which takes place every two months under the direction of Roland Graf for the Cigar Journal with the aim of finding the right companion to the cigar, has shown us several times that the pairing often turns out differently than expected.
The most common way to combine two worlds is to recommend a wine to accompany the food. During my time as a sommelier, we have chosen roughly between two different approaches: complement the dish with a wine whose flavor pattern matches the food and complements the dish; or go in a completely different direction with the wine, letting the flavors clash and creating a completely new world.
Back to the cigar: combining like with like makes little sense here. You may find that a smoky whisky tastes good with a cigar. But from a purely sensory perspective, it makes no sense to combine these two sophisticated worlds. It simply leads to sensory overload, and neither the whisky nor the cigar can be presented in the best possible light. A slight acidity, on the other hand, can have a nice, refreshing effect (from a Blanc de Blanc champagne, for example). Sweetness not only soothes the palate - it also has a positive effect against the effects of nicotine.
But how do you begin the great challenge of creating the perfect companion? First, we realize that we cannot generalize the cigar so much. So we divided it into three categories based on the wrapper leaves and would thus create 3 products: Connecticut Shade, Colorado, Maduro.
A brainstorming session took place about what we would like to taste while smoking each style:
Connecticut Shade:
Bright, Ester, Fresh, Citrusy, Ethereal, Delicately Fruity, Stone Fruit, Apricot.
Colorado:
Cozy, Full, Nutty, Aromatic, Fruity, Sweetish.
Maduro:
Deep, Rich, Warm, Dark, Jammy, Nutty, Cloying.
With these taste patterns and impressions in mind, we got to work.
Connecticut Shade: A long-aged rum from Jamaica with a high ester content was used. Its ester notes brought a lovely fruity exoticism into play, which was rounded off by the use of apricot. To achieve perfection, the whole thing was aged in chestnut wood barrels. Beautiful.
Photo Chestnut & Walnut
Colorado : Rum from Barbados, which was previously allowed to mature for up to 18 years, was sweetened slightly and enriched with a few vanilla pods from Madagascar. The ideal marriage took place in Mizunara barrels: the most expensive and rarest oak barrels in the world! Due to its high lactone content, this rare wood from Japan gives off a subtle, exotic coconut note. A real gem.
PHOTO MIZUNARA
Maduro: Our Wagemut Special Edition 2021 already enjoys a bit of a legendary status. Based on this masterpiece, we have married ancient rum from Trinidad with very old PX sherry and then let it mature in walnut barrels. To ensure that this flood of flavors can marry in peace, a final storage took place in the extremely rare, 30-year-old Palo Cortado sherry barrels. We can proudly say that we have even surpassed our 2021 bottling!
Photo walnut
You may have noticed that we have worked hard on basic rum varieties alone. We only worked in a way that was best for the product. Other factors were not taken into account. When storing the rum in barrels, we only chose the woods that made the most sense in terms of sensory aspects. If, as with the Mizunara oak, this means that we have to spend over €4,000 net (!!!) on a wooden barrel, then that's just how it is.
We hope that you enjoy these pearls as much as we do. That you enjoy the benefits of a high-quality spirit, that you don't have to drink the whole bottle like you do with a good wine, but can enjoy a small sip over 40 evenings.
Created with the idea of creating the perfect companion to a cigar, you can enjoy it just as much when you're not enjoying a cigar - as you may have already noticed with our Special Edition in 2021.
We hope you enjoy it.
Nicolas & Reinhard.
Here you can get your bottle(s):
https://wagemut.com/collections/aficionado-collection
