Old Henry Best In Show Sampler from Holt’s Cigar Company

I’ve seen a couple of my fellow blogger types mention this brand lately, but I’m going to give my spin on the contents of this very nice and affordable sampler from Holt’s Cigar Company in nearby Philadelphia. The Old Henry brand has been around for a long time, I have seen them on the shelf at the Holt’s store when I’ve visited, but never paid any attention to the brand until they generously sent me the sampler to try.  I always knew they were made by Don Pepin Garcia, and I knew they paid homage to Old Henry the bulldog who used to hang around the shop. I’ve developed an affinity for the bully breeds in the last few years, and, after smoking through the sampler I realty appreciate the opportunity to try them. I will make a bee-line to this shelf the next time I’m in the store.

Guess which one I tried first?  If you’ve been reading this site any amount of time you’ll be able to guess that I went with the Old Henry Maduro Toro first.  This was my Sunday cigar, and it was a very good smoke. It has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper that is dark and oily and quite attractive.  It was on the lighter side of full-bodied, with a rich, sweet maduro flavor. This will probably be the one I grab a handful of, as it was my favorite of the bunch. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the others, but the maduro tickled my taste buds the most.  This wet the bar pretty high for the coming days.

Monday I selected the Old Henry Pure Breed, their small batch member of the line. These are a little more expensive than the rest of the line, but not by much. They come 20 in a box where the rest are boxed in traditional 25s. The Pure Breed has a “Oscuro Grade” Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, and, like the rest of the line, has Nicaraguan binder and fillers. This was nice, smooth, elegant cigar, with plenty of flavors of nuts and spice. It was quite an impressive cigar, and, like the rest, burned quite nicely.

Tuesday evening, after an early morning root canal which was no big deal, I went with the original Authentic Corojo wrapped Old Henry. As most will know, my regular cigar routine includes taking our three-legged Pitbull, Macha, for an after diner walk, which gets both of us the exercise we need.  It was a beautiful evening, so we got about three and a half miles in, which is a good mile or so more than usual. This cigar was quite nice for the walk, solidly medium, with nice, savory flavor.  I did have to relight a couple of times, but that was more about me not paying enough attention to it. I also thought I tasted some clove, but I remembered that there was some sort of clove oil used in the dental procedure, so I wouldn’t go looking for that, unless you smoke one after having a root canal.

Finally, tonight I smoked the Old Henry Gold Label, the Connecticut wrapped member of the pack. I assume that it’s Ecuador Connecticut, based on the price-point and flavor. While this wasn’t my favorite in the line (remember, the bar was set pretty high with the Maduro and Pure Breed), it was a very nice, medium bodied cigar with a nice creamy flavor with enough spice to keep it interesting. Something I appreciated with all the cigars was the ease with which the bands came off, something I find consistent across Don Pepin’s offerings. This isn’t really important except that when the bands come off easy it minimizes the risk of wrapper damage.

Once again, my thanks to the folks at Holt’s for sharing this excellent, low-priced, yet high quality line of cigars with me so that I could share the experience with you. I truly enjoyed all four of these puppies. If Old Henry looked anything like the image on the bands, he was a handsome fellow, and to be memorialized with a cigar brand he must have been quite a terrific pooch.

That’s all for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig