Gurkha Grand Reserve
My venture into infused cigars hasn’t gone well. I tried the Acid line of cigars from Drew Estates, and had horrible experiences. I thought it was time to give Gurkha’s flagship infused cigar a chance.
The Grand Reserve is infused with “The finest cognac in the world, and handmade from the finest tobaccos.” After some investigating, I found out it is infused with Luis XIII Cognac. Lets see how it goes…
Wrapper: Cognac infused Connecticut Shade
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican
Size: 7.5 x 52 (Churchill)
Price: $12 – $13.00
Pre-smoke & Construction:
The shiny wrapper had a bumpy, somewhat strange look to it. When sniffing the foot and wrapper, I could smell the cognac and tobacco. Overall, the cigar was pretty spongy when squeezed. The pre-light draw had a slight resistance, and tasted like cognac with some kind of sweet aftertaste.
The cigar burned straight, and I may have had to correct once, but that’s about it. The ash was a little flakey, but didn’t indicate bad construction.
Flavor:
The first third started out fairly light, with smooth cognac notes and a sweet flavor that I can not find anything suitable to compare to.
The second third began with cognac flavors combined with sweetness. As I progressed, the cognac notes went away, and was replaced with a more traditional nutty flavor.
The last third took on a more traditional Connecticut wrapped cigar profile. The body increased in to the medium range, and smooth, somewhat buttery notes appeared. The sweet notes still remained, but there was no trace of cognac anymore. The nutty flavor remained as well. There may have been a slight pepper, but it was so slight that I had a hard time detecting it.
Conclusion:
The Gurkha Grand Reserve was a decent mild to medium cigar. This is by far the best “Infused” cigar I’ve had. I was expecting more of a wow factor, but overall it was enjoyable. I wouldn’t even compare this to the Acid’s, which I had bad experiences with. My only complaint is, I wished the cognac flavor didn’t fade so quickly. If these were priced cheaper, I would consider smoking them on occasion. As I often say, you should judge for yourself and give this one a try.
One last thing… Do NOT put this in with your other sticks. Even though it was in a glass tube, I kept mine in a ziplock. After a few days, I found that the cognac smell leaked out of the tube and into the bag. I wouldn’t want that mixed with my other cigars.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Cigar Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
a well aged cuban March 6th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Somebody help me…WHY do people smoke this crap?