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Photo taken by Danna Bordalí
Philip Ili Barake in "The Walking Dead Pairing"
Philip Ili Barake, Cigar Sommelier & writer for "Got Rum?" magazine, pairs up a Rocky Patel Maduro Cigar with a Zombie cocktail in his pairing called "The Walking Dead Pairing" in the 2014 October issue.
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Photo taken by Danna Bordalí Photo from Left to Right: Luis Felipe Cruz and Philip Ili Barake
Philip with Luis Felipe Cruz
Philip Ili Barake, Cigar Sommelier & writer for "Got Rum?" magazine, pairs up a Rocky Patel Maduro Cigar with a Zombie cocktail in his pairing called "The Walking Dead Pairing" in the 2014 October issue.
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Photo taken by Danna Bordalí
Cigar for October 2014 pairing
Philip Ili Barake, Cigar Sommelier and writer for "Got Rum?" magazine, pairs up a Zombie cocktail with two cigars from Rocky Patel, from the Edge Toro lineup, in the October 2014 issue and calls this pairing "The Walking Dead Pairing".
The Walking Dead Pairing
While brainstorming about a pairing for October, it occurred to me that Halloween is celebrated in many countries around the world, so I drew my inspiration from it. At first I thought about carrying out the pairing while wearing costumes, but this would not help the pairing in any technical way, so I opted instead to select a cocktail that accurately reflect the spirit of the pairing, and there is nothing more perfect than a Zombie. A Zombie is an old cocktail, not quite a classical one, but it is characterized by having several distillates among its ingredients. There are many different recipes for Zombies out there, some calling for up to three types of rums and two types of brandy. Facing all these options, weopted instead to create our own recipe,one aimed at maximizing the pairing we had in mind. For this pairing, since it called for special mixology skills, I decided to ask Luis Felipe Cruz to join me.
Regarding the cigars, I selected two of them from Rocky Patel, both from the lineup from The Edge Toro (6”x 52).
One was a Maduro, the other one a Corojo, so we could compare both as part of the pairing. These are cigars that mention 5 years of aging and that are not recommended for beginners, due to their strength. As for their composition, they have filler from Nicaragua, a small amount from Honduras and the producers hint at having tobacco from a third country in the blend, I would dare say perhaps from Ecuador or from even from Peru.
We conducted the pairing from the terrace of the Restaurant Miguel Torres Santiago, located in the heart of the Bosque de Providencia neighborhood. This terrace kept reminding me of a movie where zombies surround a group of survivors inside a shopping mall. Thinking about being in a similar situation, I imagine I would be looking for the cigar store, so I could then smoke them from the roof of the building,as I watch the sea of zombies underneath. I also thought of the TV series The Walking Dead, imagining that I would be a character who’d be looking for cigars instead of food,and would guard the cigars with my life. At the end, they say that tobacco could cause death, but in this situation it would all be the same!
For the Zombie we used the following ingredients:
2 oz. Myers Rum
2 oz. Captain Morgan Rum Private Stock
1 oz. Rhum Bielle
1 oz. Brandy Torres 10
1 oz. Lime Juice
1/2 oz. Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz. Orange Juice
1 dash of Simple Syrup
I chose the Maduro cigar for myself and left the Corojo for Luis Felipe, since he does not have as much tobacco experience as I do. Immediately upon lighting them, we perceived hints of whole coffee beans, accompanied by dry fruits, toasted pistachios and almonds. Both cigars also had a subtle spicy note way in the back. Both Luis Felipe and I perceived warm notes reminiscent of coffee, but while he was reminded of espresso, I was of whole roasted beans.
As we all know well, cigars such as these deserve to be paired with good distillates, plus Zombies are not really easy-to drink cocktails, but with our recipe we managed to create an approachable drink,well balanced and able to clean the palate. It was important to make sure that the fruit juices in the cocktail would not take center stage, muffling the notes from the distilled ingredients, something that I believe we achieved successfully.
Halfway through the cocktail, the flavor of the alcohol from the distillates started to increase and the cigar, in my case, became very aggressive. If this had been a pairing made with straight rums, at this point I would have reached for some aged rum, perhaps from Guyana, but this being a Halloween pairing, we had to continue moving forward.
Towards the end of the second third of the cigar, I started perceiving a note that was hard to identify or, more exactly, it was hard to remember where else I had perceived it, but it was a potpourri flower note, perhaps fueled by the juices in the cocktail combined with the strength of the tobacco. This didn’t bother me, so I continued with the pairing. Luis Felipe,however, could not reach the same smoking point, since the last third became too aggressive for him.
While I admit that this could be perceived as another one of my crazy ideas fora pairing, the idea was not all that bad once it was executed. While pairing with cocktails, it is important to remember a few base rules, such as not hiding the flavor of the base alcohols. The fact that we had several such flavors made this an interesting combination, highly recommendable for cooling you off on a hot day or when you are feeling like a walking Zombie…
Cheers,
Philip Ili Barake
Philip@gotrum.com