I Asked Around

I've smoked the names everyone smokes. Davidoff, Fuente, Padrón. They're all good, and they're all good for a reason. But I wanted something that wasn't the first thing on the shelf, so I did the obvious thing and asked.

I put the question to a cigar forum on Reddit: something off the big-brand path, nothing too obscure, just a step sideways. A few people pointed me toward Perez-Carrillo. The man behind it, Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, isn't a stranger to any of this. He built La Gloria Cubana into one of the big names of the '90s, sold it, and started his own company with his kids. So it isn't really wandering off into the unknown. It's more like following someone who already knows the way.

I didn't pick the exact cigar myself. I went to a lounge, told the owner what I was after, and let him hand me one. He gave me the Allegiance, a medium-bodied stick, and I smoked it right there with a glass of Pellegrino. No whiskey, no production. Just the cigar and some sparkling water on a Monday evening.

It opened with toast and a light spice, easy and even, nothing fighting me. The draw was no trouble and the burn stayed straight the whole way, which is more than I can say for some cigars that cost more. Toward the end it picked up a pepper that wasn't there at the start. That was the part I liked most, the way it didn't sit still.

So was it worth stepping off the big names? For this one, yes. Not because it beat the cigars everyone knows, but because it held its own next to them, and I'd never have found it on my own. That's the point of asking. You don't have to chase obscure stuff to get something out of it. You just have to admit you don't know everything and let someone who smokes more than you point you somewhere good.

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