Erik Nording is one of the legendary pipe crafters in the world today. Simply put his pipes are works of art. Therefore, when Rocky Patel decided to blend a cigar to honor Nording, it caught my attention. The result is the appropriately named – the Rocky Patel Nording. While I have great respect for the Nording pipes, I’m just not sure that the cigar that bears his name does the justice that it deserves.
The Nording Cigar has a very appealing look. I particularly love the Costa Rican wrapper that is on this stick. Last year, the simple white band was replaced by a more attractive silver and brown band. Yes the appearance of this cigar is terrific. In fact, the composition of this stick also appears to be exciting as this has a most unique blend:
Wrapper: Costa Rica
Binder: Mexican
Filler: Honduran, Nicaraguan
The Nording is available in four sizes:
Robusto 5 x 52
Torpedo 5 x 54
Toro 6 1/2 x 52
Toro Grande 6 x 58
For this cigar review, I’ve opted to go with the Nording Toro. While the appearance and composition of this cigar excited me, the overall experience did not live up to those initial expectations.
Immediately after putting a razor-sharp straight cut into this stick and lighting it, I immediately noticed this was a pretty loosely packed cigar. A little more loose than I prefer. I drew some salt on the initial draw, but this hit me with a lot of pepper to start. There was also a bit of tartness on this. As I approached the 1/3 point, the pepper blast fades somewhat, but it still maintains spice. The cigar then transitioned to a combination of nut flavor and coffee. Normally, I like something like this, but it was around this point where I hit a lot of bitter tones on the tongue. Unfortunately, the bitterness seemed to remain for the remainder of the stick. The pepper and bitterness remained with the last third of the stick, but there also were some cream tones. The stick had a cool finish and firm finish to it.
The draw was fine and I did not have to work this cigar too hard. The burn was another story – this cigar required a lot of touch-ups. Surprisingly, for a loose packed cigar, the ash did not flower and stayed pretty firm.
As for the strength, I think this is pretty safe to classify this in the Medium Category for the majority of this smoke – but the cigar does finish more on the Medium to Full side. I do categorize the body a little higher – namely in the Medium to Full as the flavor notes were pretty pronounced on this one.
Ultimately, there were three issues I had with this cigar each time I have had it: 1) The bitterness seems to emerge each time; 2) The Cigar is a little loose for my liking; 3) The burn issues seem to happen each time. These shortcomings just cannot be avoided. However some of the flavors I do get aside from the bitterness are good – and the price point is right – $5.00-$6.00. Conclusion, you probably want to try this and “See What You Think”
Assessment: See What You Think.
