Issue: Cigar Aficionado, Aug 01, 2007

Score: 88

This dark, attractive mini torpedo is a woody smoke, with touches of earth and leather flavors. The finish carries a coffee note.

Issue: Cigar Aficionado, Jan 01, 1970

Score: 92

Rocky Patel continues to improve the quality of the many cigars that bear his name, and the Rocky Patel Olde World Reserve Maduro Torpedo is a fine example. The thick cigar features a nontraditional wrapper leaf grown in Costa Rica around a core of Nicaraguan and Honduran tobaccos, giving the cigar an earthy, leathery flavor with hints of coffee. Wrapper tobacco is key to Patel, who sells a wide variety of cigars. He begins with a wrapper style and builds his blend around it, making adjustments to the binder, then the filler. “I’ve spent a lot of time at the factory,” says Patel. “I don’t make a blend and give it to 10 people—I trust my palate and I know what I’m looking for.” Rocky Patel has had several cigars in our Top 25 list, but this is the first time that one of his cigars has appeared in our Top 10.