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Lawrence’s blog, diaries of a hedonist It is my second day, and Mitchell has laid upon me the task of selecting any UK Regional cigar and something from the much beloved Dancing Stag line to match and review. There’s nothing quite like the ‘world at your finger-tips’ feeling when you are lucky enough to be presented with an, essentially, carte-blanche opportunity for serious indulgence and exploration. It was with this in mind, this fleeting chance, that I decided with trembling fingers to select the Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres.I didn’t want to doss around with something delicate and uninteresting, this notorious power-house in an opulent robusto gorda vitola had been beckoning to me from the first day I saw it hit the shelves in Glasgow's Canongate Robert Graham store. The dram to provide me with some familiarity whilst I do battle with the Regalias de Londres could be none other than my old friend Dancing Stag Glenallachie As I write cigar is aflame and dram is half drunk, so I feel this blog/review is about as intimate and as immediate as it’s possible to be. It was a pleasure to be enveloped by the warm, familiar tentacles of the Glenanchie.It is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite malt from the Dancing Stag range, expressing an immaculate harmony of crisp spices and black pepper, with a long, sweet vanilla-like finish; a glorious statement of complex brown sugar and lemon zest. The toasting of the foot of the Por Larranaga was just an adumbrative nod of things to come, a rich, buttery and intensely creamy smoke burst from the cigar.I just became more and more thrilled with my slightly ad hoc choice of cigar and whisky as the complexity of Regalias just increased, throwing out a delicious roasting walnut flavour. This never grew too over-whelming, I believe this was helped considerably by the crisp nature of the malt which kept the palate in check, never allowing it to sink into a bit of a buttery coma. My fears of the Regalias being too powerful for my relatively delicate palate swiftly evaporated. At this stage, the final third, I genuinely cannot find praise enough to match this truly sublime cigar. I remember when Mitchell visited Scotland shortly after the Regalias was released, where he referred to it in his characteristically succinct way as “the bomb”. Indeed it is, but fear not, it is not a bomb of unmanageable strength, nor is it a work-horse of coarse and unpleasantly distinct flavours. It is rather a bomb of chewy butter, garden herbs and clotted cream. Throw it alongside my reliable friend Glenallachie and ready yourself for a characterful juggling act of sweetness and spice. |
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| This article was published on Wednesday 13 July, 2011. | ||
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