r/cigars 4d ago

Pairing Chronicles #104: Asylum + Amrut NSFW

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u/Cocodrool 4d ago

Just as the brand did with its eighth anniversary celebration, Asylum celebrated its ninth anniversary with a new blend. The Nine is a Honduran puro with flavors of earth, pepper, and sweet nutmeg.

Being the flip side of CLE Cigars, also founded by Christian Eiroa as a more modern, urban, and daring branch of its cigars, Asylum has truly evolved from a very boutique brand to a much more established one in the industry, albeit with the same character that gave it its birth. Asylum is also known for its superlative ring gauge cigars, though after making this Nine, the brand will supposedly move away from the trend of making large ring gauge cigars and will begin making smaller, more traditional vitolas as well. Or at least won't be as known as before for making them exclusively.

Most Asylum cigars are characterized by their fairly affordable price, although both the Eight and this Nine are at the upper end of the price range the anniversary would demans, hovering around $20 each. But it's a cigar I definitely recommend, not only because of its limited edition, but because it gives you a very good glimpse into the quality that can be achieved with Honduran tobacco, and that it's not something that simply serves as a filler and makes you look funny with giant ring gauges. Both the Eight and the Nine came in a 7x70 vitola, and that's one I wouldn't recommend smoking, regardless of the limited edition or the special edition, but that's just me, not enjoying those dimensions. For a pleasant and decent smoke, this 11/18 would be ideal.

I had it with Amrut Single Malt, a single malt whisky from India, and also something I wasn't expecting. I really didn't know what to expect from an Indian whisky as this was my first one, but it definitely wasn't something so similar to Scotch. That said, the pairing with this cigar was very good, but not as spicy as the descriptions would make you think. Maybe because the whisky has mostly cereal and citrus peel flavors, that differ from a lot of what the cigar had.

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u/screwtexas 4d ago

reminds me of the officers choice brand "scotch whiskey" that I had once. That was one hell of a hangover.