I'm not usually a bourbon drinker but I'm in New York and decided to visit the Carnegie Club on W 56th (between 6th and 7th Avenues) on a Friday night. It was around 6pm by the time I got in and was mostly empty. The crowd shuffled in for the Sinatra cover band that started around 8.30 and I was even asked to move from my seat to another location mid drink/smoke which was annoying. The band was great and the place filled up with like-minded people reminiscing for the bygone nostalgia of rat pack music in a smokey cocktail lounge.
ANGEL'S ENVY CASK STRENGTH BOURBON
I rarely choose bourbon as my drink of choice when relaxing with a cigar. To me, it's too sweet and the after taste has an overchewed bubblegum residual taste that I don't enjoy unless drowned with Coca-Cola and usually in a loud environment full of distractions because I'm really just there to get drunk and have fun. However, I had heard many good and some great things about this bourbon including that in had been ranked by some magazine in some year as the "best spirit in the world" (but then, can you really trust some random stranger writing about spirits 🤔?? 😜) . At almost 64% alcohol (127.9 proof exactly) you could be forgiven for thinking "whoaaaa what the heck is this......". On the nose, there are an amazing array of flavours but the strength of the spirit and that corn/bubblegum is unavoidable. Wafting through the second time there are roasted marmallow and dates rising up from the glass. Drinking this whiskey is a true taste sensation - so many explosive and spicy flavours that linger. Definitely the toasted marshmallow sweetness which is to say more than a little vanilla, rich fruity raisins rather than dates on the tongue but in the end the cask strength is just so strong causing a spicy afterburn and the corn flavour is more burnt popcorn than overchewed bubblegum.
NAT SHERMAN LIMITED EDITION DOMINICAN LEAF INHOUSE 2011
Nat Sherman cigar store is located at 42nd Street and 5th Ave (across 5th Ave from Bryant Park). I stumbled across this fine establishment when I first visited New York in 2012 and sought it out this trip. They have a really great looking cigar store with amazingly knowledgeable, professional and helpful staff. To buy cigars in their extensive humidor, you have to be accompanied by one of their staff who talks about cigars the way a wine connoisseur talks about the amount of sun and moisture a certain batch of sauvignon takes in due to which side of the hill they were grown in a region I don't know from a year more memorable for other things. Still, it was entertaining nonetheless. This particular cigar was rolled inhouse in 2011 from their limited edition Dominican imported leaf. It is rolled in such a way as to be sealed at both ends which keeps the moisture sealed. The cigar itself was excellently rolled: even burn all the way through despite (or maybe because of) a small lighting area and a great consistent draw with ample smoke til the end. I am probably mistaken for saying this is a Dominican cigar because it really tasted like a Nicaraguan - unrelenting bitterness with some nutty almost like cashew flavours. The strength of the bitterness was akin to the toasted portion of a smore (imagine toasted marshmallow until the marshmallow all but escapes leaving only the blackened residue). Yes there's some sweetness there but it's really bitter. That bitterness stayed through til the middle but mellowed in the second half.
PAIRING NOTES
Marshamllows are an unintended theme. The pairing did not go well, the bitterness was made worse when combining the cigar with the whiskey and the afterburn of the Bourbon kept the spiciness in the mouth longer than I wanted.
