Review: Rocky Patel Cigar Event

Event Poster on the door to the humidor

Hi again folks, your friendly neighborhood cigar and pipe reviewer coming to you from the Starbucks a blog away from Barclay Rex's main store on Broad Street in NYC.  I have been lapsing in writing this review about the Rocky Patel Cigar Event that took place September 30th, 2010 at 2 of Barclay Rex's locations.  The first being the Broad Street Store and the second being the much smaller 42nd Street location.  I was feeling lazy that morning, as it was two days after my birthday, so I decided to go to the 42nd Street store for the event.

I arrived at the store at approximately 3pm and was greeted by Mr. Patel standing outside smoking a cigar (one of his own).  The event was a buy 3 get 1 free.  I purchased 2 of The Edge and 1 of the Patel Brothers cigars.  The complimentary cigar was the 1961.   Since I have enjoyed the other 3 in the past I decided to give this one a try.  True to the brand this one was just a good as the others.  It is an even fuller body than the others in the Rocky Patel line.  I thoroughly enjoyed this cigar and will review it at a later date for my loyal followers.

Rocky Patel standing behind the counter speaking to a customer

I had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Patel, who I have meet some years before at the Big Smoke NYC, and we were talking about his cigar line.  He said that the Sumatra line are one of the strongest he's manufactured to date and since I like a full bodied cigar I should give this one a try.  Will have to try this one at a later date and post a review of it to this blog site.  Blow are some of the pictures I took at the event which shows some of his cigars, lighters, cutters and a signature humidor that can hold approximately 100 cigars.

 A Rocky Patel signature table lighter

The Rocky Patel 15th Anniversary Cigar with the 1961 and Signature Cutter

 A few of the cigars in his line including the 1961

 The Limited Edition Decade Cigar

The 5 Year Old Edge cigar with a warning label 

The Rocky Patel Signature Humidor

It was a great event, only wished that I could have gotten down to the Broad Street Store as it's the larger of the two stores.  However I enjoyed smoking the 1961 and as I said before I will try to smoke another one and post a review on this blog site.  However subsequently, at the October NY Pipe Club meeting, I was able to obtain a Rocky Patel 1990 Anniversary cigar and was blown away at how full bodied this cigar is.  Review of this one to follow.

Barclay Rex will be hosting the Savinelli  Pipe show this upcoming Thursday October 28th at the Broad Street Store and on October 29th at the 42nd Street Store from 11am - 5pm.  Will try to attend either of these dates and post a review of the show.

That's all folks!! (stealing the line from Porky Pig).  As always will keep my ear to the cigar / Pipe ash to see if there's any events happening in the near future.

OCTOBER PIPE CLUB MEETING

Author's Club Meerschaum with white gloves

Well, I was just looking at my blog site and realized that the last posting was about the August Pipe Club picinic .  We got a nice turn out at this meeting including member Dominick who, for work reasons, missed the last two meetings.

A lot has happened since the September meeting.   The Club Meerschaum, ordered back in June, finally arrived from the Turkish Carver which look very good.  Peter Guss brought the pipes along with pairs of white gloves (to honor the old fashion meerschaum smoking tradition).  He also brought some tobacco blends made by McClelland in tribute to some of the old Dunhill blends.  The blends we tried are AM Pipe a clone of Dunhill's Early Morning Pipe (EMP),  PM Pipe a clone of Dunhill's Nightcap and 925 a clone of Dunhill's 965.

Also we have chosen the blends that will eventually become the official New York Pipe Club blends.  The three selected are the VaPerOr blend (Virginia #2), The Balkan #1 (The English #1) blend and the Cigar leaf blend (Sailorman Jack blend).  At the meeting President Lou Carbon said that we would also add the Virginia #1 (Straight Virginia) blend as well.  We have decided that the VaPerOr and the English #1 need to be tweaked further to see if we can improve the blends.  For the VaPerOr we will increase the Oriental component.  For the English #1 we will increase the Latakia component.  Hopefully we'll get two blends that meet the Club members approval.  We should be able to re-taste them, before we make a final decision, to see if they are to our liking. We will also come up with names and artwork that will go on the final packaging. Cornell and Deihl will be the company that will tin the final blends for retail sale.

The night ended with the remaining members, Harvey, Hank, Lou, Liam, Dom and yours truly putting down our pipes.  No we weren't quitting pipe smoking but we had some great cigars that Liam and Avi had brought along.   Liam brought three anniversary Padron cigars 1966, 1965 and 1964 (44yr, 45yr and 46yr) and Avi brought yours truly a 1990 Rocky Patel cigar (20yr).  We enjoyed the last of the evening with these wonderful cigars and then closed out the October Pipe Club meeting.

For those who wish to see the pictures here's the link to them  October Pipe Club Pictures.  Enjoy the pictures.

Well as always I will keep an ear to the cigar / pipe ash to see if any events come up before the November Pipe Club Meeting.