by Yannis Valavanis

First of all, I must apologize for my long absence from the public due to workload and then justify this sudden, albeit brief, return of mine with this short article, this time not due to workload but fatigue. But I had to write a few rants, as the established writers used to say, about two new products I tried recently.

The funny thing is that I was told about both by two friends, and actually one I bought from the local liquor store and the other one was brought to me by a friend from the island, not the one with the winds that I’m currently in, but of the cigars. You see, I may be on the island of worldliness and developments, but some things are slow to reach us because they are far from the centers of decisions and developments.

Therefore, Eminente Gran Reserve 10 y.o. and Cohiba Novedosos. Excellent both in quality and taste although I could say a bit far from my taste purely due to my judgment of peculiarity in tastes. Eminente is an easy-drinking rum, very fruity and very aromatic. A lot of vanilla as well as a lot of orange which goes very well with the spices and earthy aromas of Cuban rums. This is also the reason I mentioned at the beginning about my taste preferences, as I prefer harder rums with a stronger aftertaste and not so aromatic ones. It is the taste differentiation of the aromatic spirits that gives a lower aftertaste and stronger aromas and the opposite in the harder ones with a stronger aftertaste, which attract me even more. Maybe accidental, maybe inevitable, I can’t say I’m knowledgeable enough about spirits to know exactly.

Because above all else, the combination counts, this excellent rum matched perfectly with Cohiba’s Novedosos, what the rum lacked the cigar had. Classic representative of Cohiba with strong aromas of cedar and spices perfectly linked with the fruity aromas of Eminente giving the absolute combined pleasure. What I liked was the return to the normal caliber of enjoyment of the cigar emphasizing I think the smoker’s ability to better understand the cigar since its ring is 50mm and with a length of 15,6 cm it is a return or an awakening of Cohiba to neglected aficionados everywhere .

I find it very important to also mention, that this series of cigars is only available at Casa de Habanos in Spain and my acquaintance with the cigar was acidental because even though it has been in the market since 2019 I had not heard anything about it and if a Cuban friend brought it to me, I would never have tried it. Both excellent products, as I said above, and with a score of 9/10, I highly recommend them, as long as you can find a cigar to even try. As for the rum, although it was recently released, I think it must be available in all stores by now.