Wrapper: Dominican Corojo
Binder: Dominican Habano
Filler: Dominican Habano
Size: 4.75 x 52 Robusto
Strength: Medium
Price: $7.95 ($7.00 online)

Today we take a look at the Aging Room Solera Corojo.
Three months of naked humi time.

BACKGROUND:
From Cigar Aficionado:
“Inspired by the Solera aging method used for blending Sherry and Port wines, Boutique Blends will be releasing Aging Room Solera next month at the International Premium Cigars & Pipe Retailers trade show in Las Vegas. Like Solera-aged wines, which are blends of different, slowly integrated vintages, the cigars will contain different tobaccos from different harvest dates that have been integrated and packed together in bales for an additional aging stage.

“The brand is debuting in three sizes—Festivo, which measures 4 3/4 inches by 52 ring gauge, Fantastico, 5 5/8 by 54 and Fanfare, 6 1/8 by 57—and are set to retail from $6.95 to $7.96.

APPEARANCE:
Lots of Frankensteinian veins running up and down the stick. Seams are tight. The wrapper has a nice oily hue of medium brown; almost a neutral brown color. A small fantail atop the nicely applied triple cap. And the stick feels good…the right amount of resistance throughout.

SMELL THE GLOVE:
Dark chocolate reams my nostrils. So does a mild black pepper element along with barnyard, cedar, a touch of floral, rich brown sugar, baked apple, smoked meat, and malt.
The cold draw presents flavors of cinnamon buns, chocolate chip cookies, creaminess, malt, black pepper, brown sugar, meaty, mixed nuts, cedar, and a little green mint.
A nice array of aromas and flavors. Now, can the cigar stand up to scrutiny and expectations?

FIRST THIRD:
The draw is perfect so I put my PerfecDraw cigar poker and tool away.
First draw is on point with flavors of smoked meat, black pepper, cinnamon toothpicks, chocolate, malt, cedar, mint, mixed nuts, sweet BBQ sauce, and licorice.
Good start.
The burn is on the money.

Complexity reaches into my gullet and pulls out a plumb. Transitions kick into gear. The finish is redolent of pepper, flaky pastry, honey, walnuts, and black licorice.

I reviewed a couple of turds last go around. Here is a stick in roughly the same price range but sends up flares alerting surrounding cigars to get the hell out of my way. This blend got the same humidor time as the previous two reviewed sticks and it shines like a bright beacon that there is hope for those financially challenged and don’t want to spend $12 on every stinking decent cigar.

The cigar is packed. A slow roll. I’m glad I’m smoking the Robusto and not the other two much larger sizes. I’d be here half a day.

Then…BAM. Complexity becomes an avalanche of goodness. I’m covered in it. Damn. This blend ain’t fooling around. It came to the game fully prepared to take down the beast.
Luscious, gooey caramel coats my palate. Strength is a perfect medium. The smoky meatiness is delicious…along with a caramelized crusty element.

Mint hangs in the background balancing the black pepper. The spicy cinnamon adds a treacly touch. Sweet and nose hair burning at the same time.

Two crappy cigars, two days in a row. In preparation for this review, I got a tin bucket of water for my feet and battery chargers attached to my naughty bits in case it became three crappy reviews in a row.

Big relief that the Aging Room Solera Corojo is mighty fine. And you sure as hell can’t beat the price. I have the other three blends for review as well. I’m not even to the second third and I’m ready to purchase a box.

This stick is as good as any $12 boutique blend. And Aging Room does it without claiming it’s the best cigar they ever made or telling you that it took 17 years to develop it. Just here it is…smoke it…buy some more if you like it. Simple. Kudos Aging Room.

SECOND THIRD:
Strength is maintained at medium. But the flavor profile is quickly becoming big and fat and sassy. Like most of my pen pals.

The burn is impeccable. The ash is still in place without me having to smoke in unnatural positions of agony and stupidity.

Aging Room or Boutique Blends is the catalog brand that sneaks in under the protection of camouflage and a low-key approach. I really can’t think of any of their blends that isn’t a good cigar. They should get more credit for their passionate approach to blending.

I have a sophisticated palate. Either luck or just plain time produce this. Maybe a little of both. The Aging Room Solera Corojo is ringing all my bells. The deep complexity is pure pleasure. The balance is right on, mates.

The two sides of savory and sweet are a home run. Each puff brings a new experience that is intense and satisfying. Every half an inch brings something new to the table. I’m plotzing.

Strength slides in at medium/full.

Individual flavors begin a serious morphing entanglement that eliminates specificity. It is the whole which is greater than its parts. A rare commodity. Seven fucking dollars!
I have no idea how the other 3 blends will be more impressive. But then I am a Corojo fan.

If you have some Camacho Corojos, throw them away. They’re drek.

Isabela Cigars has a rep for incredible transitions throughout the course of the cigar. While not as complex as some Isabelas, the Aging Room Solera Corojo shows off some of that same mindset by the blender. Of course, Isabela blends take years and therefore hold the king’s attention with a more intense experience.

It’s 51 degrees at 10am. Could spring be really here? Am I done falling on black ice?

The halfway point arrives at an hour. Based on analytical geometry and trigonometric algorithms, I believe this cigar just may be a two-hour smoke.

We have flavor bomb status. I haven’t said that in a while.
Big sips of water between puffs opens a new universe each time. Like Poprocks, you just can’t help but smile and enjoy the silliness.
So, are you sick of me fawning over this stick?

LAST THIRD:
Slick. Bona fide. Meticulous. Thirty seconds over Tokyo.

Flavors: Cream, black pepper, espresso, licorice, malt, cinnamon, caramel, smoky meatiness, mint leaves, salted nuts, cedar, brown sugar, burnt oak, and earth, wind and leather.

Elements interweave with sonic youth. Complexity is like a flock of seagulls. Splat. Transitions are a Journey. The finish is the Police chasing you down a dark alley.
Nothing Muddys the Waters.

No let up. A constant barrage. My brain swells to the size of a lime.
Did you know that your ears never stop growing? Take a look at your grandparents. Take a gander at any old person in front of you at Walmart. They all look like Basset Hounds. So far, I’ve been lucky. Now that I’ve jinxed it…well.

For a measly $7, you can enjoy a cigar that will be appreciated by your most critical smoker friends. It only took 3 months to get here. If you buy some and smoke one ROTT, I will come to your house, fuck your dog, molest your cat, eat your goldfish, and make mad passionate love to your housekeeper. If she doesn’t speak English, that’s even hotter.

“Kashmir” is playing…Jimmy Page’s favorite Zep song.

It harkens back to the days as each Zep album was released and my buddies and I lay on the living room floor with our Marantz systems and turntables and blasted it while doobs languished between our lips…eyes closed…taking it all in over and over.

The Aging Room Solera Corojo is a mood changing cigar. Uplifting like being awakened in the middle of the night with a surprise BJ from your girlfriend. Wives generally stop that shit once they pop out their first kid.

Construction has been without a single criticism or fault. Harshness is no where to be seen. Smooth like George Clooney asking a chick what her name is.
And then there is Ted Nugent…that fucker scares me.

The Solera Corojo turns your brain into a whirling dervish. Spinning out of control; unable to hold on.
I’ve run out of bullshit. The Aging Room Solera Corojo was a welcome surprise. If you trust your Uncle Katman, find some and then do something opposite to your nature: Be patient.
Cheers.

RATING: 93

And now for something completely different:

MLB Opening Day is today! So, a story from the past seems appropriate.

1978
My beloved L.A. Dodgers were in the World Series playing the Yankees. I had a solid, but crazy, group of friends and we watched every game together.

From Wikipedia:
“This Series had two memorable confrontations between Dodger rookie pitcher Bob Welch and the Yankees’ Reggie Jackson. In Game 2, Welch struck Jackson out in the top of the ninth with two outs and the tying and go-ahead runs on base to end the game. Jackson would get his revenge in Game 6 by smashing a two-run homer off Welch in the seventh to increase the Yankees’ lead from 5–2 to 7–2 and put a final “exclamation point” on the Yankees’ victory.”

That evening was the night that Welch had struck out Jackson. And SoCal was jubilant. We were at Richie’s and his wife Delores’ apartment in the Belmont Shore area in Long Beach. Belmont Shore was right off the beach and was like a cross between the Sunset Strip and Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.

Attending the event was me and my girlfriend…plus another couple whose names I can’t remember. Doug Page was there. An original human being…The living embodiment of the Big Lebowski. He always had a cocktail in his hands whether he was driving his old Volvo or sitting on the couch. My other solo buddy was an old high school friend, John Turner.

Doug became a good buddy whom I met from playing volleyball at the beach every weekend. Back in our late 20’s, we were sleek, tanned and good looking. Now we all look like bloated raisins.

The game had ended and we were celebrating, drinking tequila and smoking doobs. John announced he was making a booze run and off he went into the streets where a massive celebration was in full gear.
He returned with Dodger’s pitcher, Bob Welch, in tow. We literally fell out of our chairs.

John had found a drunken Welch in a bar next to the liquor store on 2nd St. where the action was in Belmont Shore.
He then convinced Welch that a hip and happening party was going on and he dragged him over to us. Hip and Happening? We were 8 people and literally sedated from weed and booze.

There were three couples, (And John and Doug) listening to music and getting sloshed.

Welch plopped himself down in a chair opposite the couch, leaned back in the chair until it rested on its back two legs and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Delores did not like this one bit.

Welch was completely shit faced and began telling us gossip about the Dodgers. Then he started complaining how they didn’t treat him right. He bitched about Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda….and how someone else got a snazzier sports car than he got, etc, etc, etc. Poor Welch.

Then he started bitching about John’s description of our hip and happening party. He became really rude. He called our wives and girlfriends skanky bitches. Richie, who was from Philly, was a tough dude and got up and knocked Welch’s chair out from under him.

Welch was a big guy. And he shook the apartment with the thud his body made.

He got up and was ready to fight. He was in shape and 21. We were all nearing our 30th birthdays and not in shape like this athlete. This guy was bad news. But one does have to take into account he was only a kid at the top of his game…and had no idea how to cope.

We later learned that Welch was a full-blown alcoholic which got him traded to the Oakland Athletics in 1988.
John held Welch back and I held back Richie. Welch kicked over the coffee table spewing drinks and bowls of chips and dip everywhere.
And then he sat down again.

We all looked at each other in wonderment. This can’t be happening. Here was the star of the L.A. Dodgers on the night they beat the NY Yankees and all we wanted was for him to leave.

My very timid, and meek, girlfriend spoke up first and asked him to leave.

Welch went into a tirade and cursed at us in a nonstop blue streak. It took John, Richie, Doug and I to move his body to the door where we could still hear him swearing at us as he stumbled down the street.

I have some more gossipy baseball stories to be discussed…
My wife was in her mid-20’s and a flight attendant for Lufthansa Airlines. A German citizen. She became engaged to San Francisco Giants’ ace pitcher John Montefusco. They were engaged for two years but then she found out about his serial cheating and dumped him. He was also running cocaine back from the DR during his off-season Triple A fooling around. His other teammates did the same thing as well as friends with the Dodgers. Charlotte realized she was hanging with the wrong crowd and split.

She got to go to all the baseball private parties. Remember Steve Garvey? He was the squeaky clean Dodger. Every kid wanted to be Garvey. Charlotte told me stories about the guy and I couldn’t believe my ears. He was a serial skank underneath the All-American image his agent developed for him.

But then at some point, Garvey got his dick stuck in the wrong place and was caught by his wife; red handed. She took everything.

Garvey was the worst, according to Charlotte, in terms of fucking around openly at the “In” parties. Charlotte watched him grab a young girl by the ankles on the 5th floor balcony of a San Francisco hotel and let her dangle upside down while she screamed in terror. He was repeating the mantra, “Fuck or fly. Fuck or fly. Fuck or fly.”

I actually saw Dodger Dusty Baker at a friend’s house in Long Beach coming out of the bedroom as he just scored some coke. He quickly made his exit when he saw me. I don’t know how much he thought he was disguised but wearing an official Dodgers warm up jacket didn’t help his disguise.

Of course, all of the players smuggling coke had hangers-ons that would distribute the dope for them. All the baseball players had to do was get the stuff on the plane and bring it home and make a killing. This went on for years…maybe still does.

As I tired of the music business, Charlotte grew tired of Lufthansa and being hooked up with a snake for a fiancée. So, she bolted to South Lake Tahoe with a friend and began managing a well-known club along the lake’s shore. That’s where I met her in 1984 while managing a band from Long Beach but based out of Tahoe.

The first time I met her was while we were setting up the band’s gear at her club. She came downstairs to where bands played to say hello to the guys that played there often.

She sat down and my jaw dropped as I listened to her swear like a longshoreman. I was told later that I just stared at her, not blinking, listening to the filthiest mouth I’d ever heard on a woman. I fell in love instantly.

It nearly killed her not swearing once our baby Katie was born. But by the time Katie was 13, she could no longer control herself and I will give you three guesses how long it took for our impressionable teen to pick up on it being OK to curse like someone squashed by an elephant.

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Tags: Aging Room Solera Corojo | Cigar Reviews by the Katman, cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars