Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano ~ 18 months of fermentation and aging
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan Estelí, USA Pennsylvania Broadleaf, Mexican San Andrés, Dominican La Canela
Size: 6 x 52 Toro
Strength: Medium
Price: $16.50
Date Released: August 2025
Quantity Released: 1500 boxes of 10
Factory: Casa Carrillo
My cigars received 3 months of naked humidor time.
THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
I bought a fiver shortly after the Silk was released 10 months ago. I smoked one on receipt, didn’t think much of it, and put the rest away. I’ve dredged the remaining sticks from my hidden humidor and thought what better way to waste a nice Sunday, than write about a cigar. Can’t wait for January 1, 2027.
I like the weight of the cigar. Other than that, an ordinary, run of the mill looking Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. I disrobe the footer band and perform the sniff test. It is missing the heavy hand of earthy barnyard. It’s very sweet smelling with notes of chocolate, baking spices, red bell pepper, and floral.
The cap kind of puckers at the top. No worries. My PerfecPunch never tires of taking itself for granted or just lying there like my third wife on our honeymoon. The blow hole is released. Something my last employer said as they sent me walkin’.
Peanuts. The open draw is peanuts. Not even close to needing squinched eyes guessing what it might taste like. And then there is café au lait, milk chocolate, citrus, malt, and an unidentifiable white crystalline powder.
First puffs and it’s peanut brittle. Heavy on the caramel. Holy crapbiscuit. I certainly don’t remember my first stab tasting like this. Time served has achieved what I hoped.
I found a couple written reviews and I’m not in agreement with either at this early stage. One was done a mere two months after release and found too much spice at the start. The other was published 8 months after release and found generic flavors on top of a natural sweetness. Generally, this means that the cigar blend is up for grabs. It’s up to our specific highly molten brains to pick what is triggered from memory, more so than actual design by the blender. I love consistency. That’s the whole point for reading reviews. If every man jack of us experiences something different, it then boils down to looking for a thumbs or thumbs down…based on which reviewer’s credo you like. The details are no longer the devil.
I spent the summer of ’84 in Lake Tahoe. I was managing a band who I thought had the right stuff to make it big. It was the perfect place to unwind after my storied music career went sideways after the Eddie Munster project. I made another blunder of judgment as the band did not have the seriousness to succeed. But it was there that I met Charlotte after a number of blind dates.
The guys in the band would set me up with one disastrous woman after another. But this one chick I remember vividly. She had an out-of-control cocaine habit. And yet she overcame the Beverly Hills Diet and ate constantly. It was the first time my weenie shared oral space with a cannoli. She was half owner of a nice boat, and on this day, I was invited to take a cruise of Tahoe Lake. I remember cruising slowly up to The “Godfather II” house. We sat there and smoked a joint. I just stared without blinking. It was only 10 years after the smash hit was released. There were no people evident. And it was a calm, warm day. Because there is something terribly wrong with me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Oh my God! Over there! Floating in the water. It’s Fredo!!!” Everyone in the boat ducked…and then got up realizing I had pranked them. No one spoke to me the rest of the trip.
Strength is medium. Barely.
Next month is the 57th anniversary of the moon landing. If you add a comment below stating it was a hoax, I will have you killed. 1969. While in college, I was the steamboat captain at Knott’s Berry Farm. It was late afternoon when the ticket seller ran out to the Cordelia K and excitedly told me the news. I was overjoyed. I grabbed the bullhorn and screamed out those good vibrations to the 50 people on the boat. Silence. Nothin’. No applause. Crickets. I turned around, gunned the engine, and did my two revolutions around Duck Island. I couldn’t believe it. As it turns out, everyone on board was eventually elected to Congress.
I still have my name tag:
I kept the Los Angeles Times front page and later framed it:
Creamy. Creamy peanut butter, milk chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, a slight touch of lemonade, dates, and white pepper. With plumes of floral. It’s mildly complex, icy smooth, and perfectly transitional.
“I fell in love with the whole attitude of the bass. I liked the timbre of it and the potential for musical anonymity. Bass is a background instrument, but it’s so fundamentally important that music is very shallow without it. …Lee Sklar
The first time I saw Lee Sklar (Jackson Browne, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, Toto, The Doors) play was 1969. It was one of those 1950’s style concerts where the hitmakers of the day were given 20 minutes to play their most famous tunes…and then get the fuck off the stage. While people were still streaming into the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, a trio began to play. Their gear was set up in front of the closed curtains. My merkin and toupee flew off as I heard something new. These three musicians played jazz fusion for teens that wanted to hear Dion and the Belmonts. I sat in the front row and didn’t breathe as I saw a bass player do things I never knew, or understood, could be done. Back in the day, it was no big deal for fans to go backstage. Security was lax. I wanted to meet Sklar. I was 19 and Lee was 22. He engaged me without reservations or prejudice. I told him that I was currently taking lessons from Carol Kaye…that was my golden ticket. It may have only been 10-15 minutes of jabbering, but I returned to my seat a new bass player. I sought out fellow musicians who understood this new music and for the next couple of years, I learned…one clam after another. Sklar changed the way I looked at the possibilities.
I was right about the construction. It makes for a leisurely smoke.
Despite the strength of the cigar being on the shy side of medium, the body of this blend is medium/full. This review cigar is my second cigar of the day after a hearty lunch of gefilte fish flavored Hamantaschen and Smarties encrusted brisket. It’s part of a healthy keto diet.
The second third ratchets up the power to a solid medium. And with it, the depth widens. Sometimes a flavor profile can be so exquisitely intrusive that you can feel every nerve ending on your palate receiving the blender’s intent. This is exactly what the Silk delivers.
The criticism from the two big reviews complained that the quality found in the first third did not translate in the second half. I hope that’s incorrect.
This is one of the creamiest cigars I remember. The year and a half of aging on the Ecuadorian Habano wrapper makes a difference.
The Silk is constantly transitional. Construction is on point. The burn line is sharp. And it is a slow, luxurious smoke. I could burn this cigar every morning.
The key to getting the most enjoyment from this cigar is to take your time. If you constantly huff and puff, tar and bitterness will coat the delicate flavors. Spending two hours with this cigar opens the profile. The downside is that we rarely have a couple hours to spend with our first cigar of the day. I’m a Robusto or Corona Gorda guy. An hour and 15 minutes works for me. The blend was designed by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo’s daughter and granddaughter for women. But I’m not sure that this blend will translate to any time of the day. Kidding aside, I had very little food or drink in my gut when I lit up. This is not an after-dinner smoke. Plus, I question the size. This is a big cigar entrusted to a mild journey.
Instead of the flavor profile lessening or disappearing in the last third, it intensifies. The creamy peanuts, chocolate, café au lait, malt, and dried fruit work for the betterment of mankind.
Mind you, the strength spends most of its time as mild/medium in the first third, and then medium in the second third. It is only in the last two inches that it escalates to nearly medium/full. If you are a powerhouse lover, this is not the blend for you. But if you enjoy subtlety and panache, this is a great purchase.
If you check around, there are deals that may bring the $16.50 price tag down a few bucks. If you know about a solid opportunity, let your brethren know about it below.
RATING: 95
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