Cigar Aficionado

Those who had tickets to the Big Smoke Las Vegas Seminars (they sold out back in the summer) were treated to no shortage of cigars and drinks on Saturday. The show began with a cigar and Tequila, and the last cigar in a 10-cigar seminar (not a typo) was paired with a trio of Scotches.

That final cigar was a 90 pointer, a Montecristo 1935 Anniversary Edición Diamante Toro made in Nicaragua for Altadis U.S.A. The all-Nicaraguan smoke measured 6 inches by 55 ring, and has a suggested retail price of $24.20. It was paired with three Scotches of increasing age from Dewar’s: 12 Year Old, 18 Year Old and a new release, Dewar’s 19 Year Old Champion’s Edition.

The seminar was moderated by Cigar Aficionado’s longtime spirits expert and senior features editor, Jack Bettridge, and it followed the emotional presentation by Carlos Fuente Jr. that still seemed to reverberate, even into this seminar.

This wasn’t lost on Bettridge. He sat in silence for a moment at center stage, looking out on the crowd. “Now I know what it’s like to follow the Rolling Stones,” he deadpanned. 

ing him on stage were Rafael Nodal, vice president of product capability for Tabacalera USA (Altadis U.S.A.’s parent company), and Nick Wright, brand ambassador of Dewar’s. The wait staff poured samples of each drink for the eager crowd, as Montecristo cigar smoke filled the air. Nodal pointed out that there were “a lot of parallels” between making great cigars and great Scotch, particularly in how you need to adjust your raw materials to maintain consistency. “You have to make adjustments to your blends.”

Before the tasting began, eagle-eyed Bettridge noticed a spit cup in front of him. “There’s a way you use this,” he said, holding it close to his mouth, before chucking it over his shoulder. “Get rid of it.” The crowd approved: no one was spitting here in Vegas.

Dewar’s today is among the most famous Scotch brands in the world. “Ninety percent of the Scotch in the world is blended,” said Wright. But he spoke about the early days of the whisky, when Tommy Dewar found a clever way to improve the reach of the brand, then in its infancy, paying person after person to go into a bar and ask for it by name. By the end of the week, he would go in, confirm the demand and offer to add it to the bar’s repertoire. “By the time the late 1800s rolled around,” said Wright, “they couldn’t keep up with demand, and built their own distillery.”

Some equate Scotch with the smokiness of peat, but that’s not a flavor Dewar’s is known for. “We tend not to do a lot of peated whiskies,” Wright said. The brand is known more for elegance than power. So too, the Montecristo being smoked is not the most powerful cigar from Altadis, which worked for the pairing.

“You don’t want to have a full-bodied cigar with a mild whisky, and vice versa,” Bettridge counseled. 

The Montecristo, despite its 90-point-rating, was originally a reject. “We started working on this blend, and it was not what we were looking for,” said Nodal. “Two or three years later, we revisited the blend.” Now, he loves it. 

The crowd seemed to enjoy it too, along with the whiskies. A poll of hands at the end showed that most enjoyed the pairing of the 18-year-old spirit with the cigar, followed somewhat closely by the 19, with the 12 a distant third. But with all the education, all the cigars and all the drinks had during these seminars, everyone was a winner—a rarity in Las Vegas. Bettridge wished the seminar crowd a fond farewell, and then it was time for many to get ready for the Big Smoke that would take place later that evening.

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