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The Short and Sweet Peak: Ah! The Hoyo de Monterrey Petit Robusto

I was standing on the porch of a cabin so deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains my GPS had kicked off and died three miles ago. There was a tang in the air — that high, fresh oxygen that makes your lungs feel like they’ve been scrubbed raw. I had just finished a four-mile scramble up the ridge and my heart was still thumping nails through the gold of it, a steady, energetic rhythm against my ribs. I wasn’t tired; I was wired. I felt as though I had 10 more miles left in me, but the sun began to drop, throwing out long golden fingers over the floor of the valley below.

My pal, Pete, was already sprawled in a cedar Adirondack chair with a tin cup of something that I suspected to be over-proofed rye. He stared at me, saw the glint of manic energy in my eyes, and fished in his coat pocket. He didn’t speak — only handed me a stumpy little cigar with a white and red band that glowed dimly in the twilight. “Present for the summit,” he mumbled. “You’re moving too fast. This’ll ground you back down to the planet.”

I looked at the stick. It was a short — stumpy even — but there was a certain heft to it that suggested it wouldn’t be gone in two minutes and that I wasn’t simply getting my fix of Vitamin N. It was a Hoyo de Monterrey Petit Robusto. I had seen them around, of course, but I was always more of a Churchill or Double Corona man when out in the wild. I thought if I was going to smoke, I want it to last a whole campfire long. But that night, with the wind rising and the light falling, I didn’t really want a marathon smoke. I needed something compact. Something punchy but polite.

That smoke? The Hoyo de Monterrey Petit Robusto turned out to be just the companion I had no idea I was looking for.

The Specs

Construction and Initial Impressions

Between my fingers, I have to say the 50 ring gauge feels about right. It’s got that “bull-dog” stance. The wrapper was gorgeous on this, a Colorado-Claro color meaning the shade of an old baseball glove or a light latte. It had an oily, polished sheen under the mountain light, and the veins were so sparse they might as well not have existed. I’ve smoked my way through some Cuban sticks that appeared to have been rolled by somebody in a blackout and during Hurricane Sandy, but this Hoyo was clean. Solid construction. No soft spots, no lumps.

I cut off the cap with a straight cutter I have on my keychain. The cold draw was very surprising; very open. Occasionally, short, fat sticks like this are susceptible to plugging if the roller is heavyhanded with the filler but that was straw-draw. I caught a whiff of sweet hay and a specific floral note, almost like dried chamomile. There was also a whisper of cedar, which seemed to me just right for the mountains. I didn’t even have a torch with me; I used a long wooden match, and let the flame skip around for a second before applying it to the foot. The odor of the unlit tobacco was earthy and sweet, a pleasant foretaste of the performance ahead.

The First Third: A Stroll in the Woods

The early puffs were a revelation. Ever smoke something and learn in 10 minutes you’ve been over-thinking your flavor profiles? This wasn’t a knotty, blunt force attack on the taste buds. It was gentle. The first notes blew up light on woodiness — cedar, mostly and with a curious touch of salt. Even though I was thousands of feet above sea level, it took me back to the way the air smells near the coast.

As the cherry dropped away, a walnut nuttiness began to seep through. It wasn’t bitter, though. It was something in between the skin of a walnut, a bit dry, and a juicy flavor. The smoke output was impressive. For such a little stick, it was pumping big fat clouds that hung in the stationary mountain air like low-lying fog. I detected a trace of white pepper on the retrohale but it was very faint. It didn’t sting; it just gave a bit of a wink to let me know it was there. I leaned back in the chair, finally coming down from my post-hike adrenaline high into a comfortable glow.

The Second Third: The Cream Rises

By the beginning of the second third, which is at around fifteen minutes, the profile made a slight change in direction. The salt disappeared and morphed into a creamy note that is reminiscent of the finest Hoyo de Monterreys in my parlance. It was buttery. I mean “shortbread cookie” smooth. It was at this point that the vanilla and cinnamon began to make an appearance. Not that it was a flavored cigar — don’t get me wrong — but just the natural sweetness of that Vuelta Abajo tobacco doing its work.

I’ve got to tell you, the transition was seamless. One minute I’m getting wood and nuts, the next I feel like I’m having a light dessert by the fire. And there was a floral aspect here, too — some sort of honeysuckle vibe. Perhaps the most “elegant” smoke ever, if that’s what we are to call a cigar. It doesn’t attempt to club you over the head with strength. It’s light-bodied, yes, but not thin. When you drink it, there’s a “mouthfeel” to it that has some weight. I did a little hard chewing on the smoke, just trying to get all of those sweet ginger and nutmeg notes dancing around the edges.

The Final Third: Spicy End

As I neared the last couple of inches, I anticipated things to become hot or hars

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ICYMIView Entire List › That’s generally the shortcoming with Petit Robustos; when it comes to the band, the heat has a tendency to ruin everything. But this Hoyo kept its cool. The creaminess endured, but the pepper kicked into another gear. Transition It shifted from a white pepper to more of close to a black one spice, and that was the best quality behind all the sweetness in those first thirds which at this point now I went back-to-back with it on empty belly.

There was a more pronounced earthy tobacco flavor here — sweet, rich earth, the smell of garden after a heavy rain. A spicy cedar finish that remained on the tip of my tongue long after I exhaled. I smoked it all the way down to the nub, so that I was almost burning my fingers. I didn’t want to put it down. Yet it never became bitter, not even at the very end. It simply intensified a bit, got a mite more “full” of itself and then waved good-bye. Total smoke time was roughly 45 minutes of sheer, unadulterated relaxation.

The Backstory: Why the “Hoyo” Matters

And so I sat there, watching the last of the embers in my cigar as it turned to ash, and began thinking about where this thing came from. The brand has a cool story. It was begun by a man named José Gener y Batet, a Spanish immigrant who had made his way to Cuba. He fell into a plantation in the Vuelta Abajo district. The name “Hoyo de Monterrey” translates as “hole of Monterrey”.

Now, typically, the last thing you would want to do is call your piece of land a “hole” if you were trying to sell it; but in the tobacco world, that’s gold. It describes the hollow topography of the plantation. It’s where the best soil settles and is sheltered from the harshest winds. It’s the ideal microclimate for growing that tender, silky and aromatic wrapper leaf. In fact, the Petit Robusto size was one of the first (if not the first) size that they created for their brand back in around 2004 or so. It was a smart move. It provided all those complex, light-bodied flavors of a bigger Hoyo in a shape that’s easy to fit into one’s life — or just one mountain porch break.

Pairing Recommendations

I was sipping some pretty godawful rye whiskey from a tin cup, and you know what? It was a little too much for this cigar. The rye was too aggressive. If I could do it again, this is what I would choose to pair with the Hoyo de Monterrey Petit Robusto:

• Coffee: Some light roast with a little bit of fruity notes would be ideal. A pour-over Ethiopian or a standard café au lait. Creaminess of the cigar meets acidity of the coffee.
• Rum: Try something Cuban, if you can find it, like Havana Club 7 Year. The sweetness of the molasses in the rum pairs nicely with cinnamon and vanilla in the second third.
• Tea: A high-quality Earl Grey. The bergamot serves to amplify the tea’s flowers and bright citrus against the tobacco.
• Beer: Avoid the heavy IPAs. A dry Pilsner or a Belgian Witbier would be great also. You need something to kill the palate, but not drown out the smoke’s light body.

The Verdict

You know those moments when everything falls into place? The scene, the vibe, the company — and the smoke. This Hoyo de Monterrey Petit Robusto was the part missing from that mountain evening. It’s not the biggest piece of wood in the box, and it sure ain’t the strongest. If it’s a full blast of nicotine and dark chocolate you’re after, go elsewhere. This is a refined experience.

It’s a cigar for when you need to feel revved up and centered. It’s for the guy who values nuance over brute force. The build was flawless, the burn as even as a glass of water and the flavor transitions were seamless as a mountain brook. Is it a daily driver? Perhaps not, what with the price point and the Cuban availability issues. But for a gift? For a “summit” smoke? It’s a winner.

I threw the nub into the fire pit and glanced at Pete. He was dozing, his tin cup empty. I felt great. I felt as if I could hike another five miles, but instead, sat back and watched the stars appear. Best things, as they say, come in small sizes.

Final Thoughts: If you find a box of these, get ’em. They are ideal for those 45-minute moments when you want the full Cuban experience but not the required two hours. Solid. Truly solid.

My Rating: 91/100

“Smoke ’em if you got ’em, but they should be the good ones.”