Romeo y Julieta Pirámides Añejados

Description

Product Specifications

I hadn’t seen the guy in seven years — not since an especially woozy weekend in Madrid that concluded with our losing a rental car and winning a lifetime’s worth of stories. It’s funny how you can reconnect with an old friend/ acquaintance. You know it’s going to be awkward, but then the hull begins slapping against the Mediterranean chop and the sails fill with that first real gust of the day and suddenly you just sort of lose track of the years. We were out there for fun, working the coast in too much exuberance and skill. “I brought something for the moment,” Julian said, pulling a cigar from a weathered leather travel humidor that appeared to have been through one too many airport security bins.

He passed me a double-banded torpedo. One was the classic gold and red of Romeo y Julieta; the other a stately silver and yellow that said
Añejados
. I’ve smoked a lot of Romeo’s in my day. They’re the workhorse of the Cuban universe.

But this one had a different feel in the hand.” It was a little weighty, a little historic. Lighting a cigar on a moving sailboat is an art form — you have to know where that sweet spot of dead air behind the cabin is — but once I got that foot glowing, the world slowed down. That smoke? The
Romeo y Julieta Pirámides Añejados
.

It wasn’t just a cigar; it was an ideal good friend to spend the day reconnecting with on the open water. The Specs
Attribute
Detail
Product Type
Cigar
Construction: When Rustic Is Beautiful
I mean, I gotta say, if you’re coming here looking for a wrapper that looks like it was photoshopped by a marketing team, this ain’t it.

Our Pirámides Añejados, I like to say has a “working man’s” wrapper. It’s rustic. You’re gonna see some veins.” There’s going to be a little texture. But boy, oh boy, that color — it’s the exact shade of a perfect latte, coffee with milk that glints in the sunlight and throws off these reddish-orange accents.

It looks like it’s seen something, and that it has should not be surprising since these things were rolled and then sat in cedar boxes for five to eight years before they ever saw the light of day. I really enjoy the Pirámides shape because it allows you to manipulate the draw. Gave it a fairly conservative clip with my double guillotine. The pre-light draw was uncharacteristically free for a Cuban torpedo.

I generally anticipate a little more resistance, but this was just perfect. The cold draw was very sweet wood with just a hint of honey. It was not “fresh” or “green”—you could tell the ammonia was long gone, replaced by that mellow, fermented scent you can only get with time. The stick was nice and hard, no spongy molars, just a tightly-packed roll courtesy of the Vuelta Abajo pros.

First Third: Caramel and Sea Air
The first few puffs were a revelation

.” You ever smoke one of them fresh Cubans and it’s got that hot, peppery zing that nips at the back of your throat?

None of that here. A generation had aged away all the sharp edges. Creamy, heavy smoke tasted of caramel and cedar during the first third.

There was a faint sweetness which I interpreted as being wildflower honey, that worked really well with the salty air on our boat. It was the texture of the smoke that really grabbed me. It’s light to medium bodied, but it feels “fat” in the mouth, if that makes any sense. It has a cacao undertone that begins to emerge after the first inch.

I get a little hay and faint earth, but it’s really quite nice. Its not trying to smash you over the head. It is more like chatting with an old friend, where things are easy and comfortable and familiar at the beginning. The ash was light grey and persistent despite the boat’s rocking.

Solid construction, for sure.

The Mid-Third: Time to Get Down to Business
We tacked the boat and went out a little further and the cigar began to change. Now its here that the Añejados starts to really come into its own. The sweetness from the caramel began to give way to darker, more nuanced notes. I began to get dried fruits, think raisins, or maybe dried cherries, mixed with a very specific dark chocolate bitterness that kept the whole thing in balance.

Then came the nuts. Hazelnut, specifically. It’s a classic Romeo y Julieta characteristic, but amped up and smoothed by the cedar aging. There’s a taut leatheriness that begins to develop here, too.

This is not “new car” leather, but rather a lot closer to an old, well-oiled baseball glove. The body remains a robust medium. What they never made me do is sit still (ok I was already sitting, you get the idea). It’s a very harmonious blend.

Nothing is shouting; everything is singing in unison. That, I found in the retrohale— a gentle touch of white pepper that reminded me it was GE, reminding me, but not bashing my nasal passages with spice. The Last Third: The Final Act
As I got to the last third, the sun was just beginning to drop, and the wind had fallen into a mild murmur.

The Pirámides Añejados took that to mean it was time to turn the volume up. The strength ticked up just a smidgen, entering into that true medium-plus domain. The flavors got bolder. I’m speaking licorice, deep earth and a sweeter woodiness.

It was as if the cedar in the aging box chose then and there to come out of hiding. What struck me most was the absence of bitterness. When you’re down to the nub of a torpedo, in other words, things can get a little hot and acrid. Not here.

That was when those honey and caramel notes from the beginning made a surprise reappearance, joining forces with the spice for a sweet-and-salty finish that stuck around on my palate in the absolute best way. I smoked it so far down that I got to the place where I was burning my fingers and I just couldn’t get rid of it. It was a balanced, graceful ending to a 60-minute ride. Pairing: What to Drink?

On the boat, we were keeping things simple with some iced sparkling water and a flask of aged rum that Julian had “borrowed” from his father’s stash. This is a natural for 12-year-old Panamanian or Cuban rum. You want a beverage with sweetness — so it corresponds to the honey flavors in the cigar — but with enough oakiness to battle against the cedar. If you’re not on a boat (lucky you, I bet you don’t even worry about falling overboard), I’d recommend a straight espresso or a cappuccino.

The milkiness of a cappuccino worked nicely with the creaminess of the first third.

If you’re a scotch drinker, reach for somethi