Padron Serie 1926 80th Maduro

[CigarMan Andy]

I have these, and I finally got my hands on a couple at the DC HERF2009. Sawnsan gave us a great price of $20 a stick. This smoke was has been on my wish list for a while. This cigars reputation caused me to have expectations of totally awesome experience.

Country: Nicaragua
Length/Ring: 6.75 x 54
Shape: Perfecto
Wrapper: Maduro
Strength: Full

I love perfectos The Maduro wrapper, smooth, firm oily. I used my double guillotine to get a straight cut as usual. The construction was box press perfection. Tight but a beautiful draw.

I lit my cigar with anticipation, I had my first taste revealing an toasty yet creamy flavor. The burn was even but ash was was strange. As I progressed into the first portion, I could taste the complexity of this wonderful cigar start getting a cocoa taste in the background. A firm deep smoke with strong flavor.

As I entered the second third, I tasted a chocolate flavor with hints of a leather undertone yet kind of sweet. The burn was perfect and the ash would not let go. Even though it started to split then it resembled an alligator or a dragon head.

Entering the last third, the ash finally fell off. I started getting hints of coffee briefly still tasting cocoa and a hint of leather. The second ash held almost till the end. It was almost three inches before falling off in my hand. I continued, and couldn't put it down. It kept getting better, and fished with a bang and burnt fingers.

I highly recommend you get your hands on one of these cigars. A genuine treat from start to finish. Oh! and about my expectations? They were exceeded. A great experience for 90 minutes.

 

[Fatken]

Thanks for the review. I have had several of these, and have found them to be very good. I don't know if they live up to the hype or worth the money, but have enjoyed all of the ones I smoked. I have yet to smoke the natural yet.

Ken

 

[Dsav101]

Dang, I really have to get ahold of a few of em! I love me every Padron maddie so far, so will have to bit the bullet and order a couple!

Don

 

[Kingantz]

Dang, I really have to get ahold of a few of em! I love me every Padron maddie so far, so will have to bit the bullet and order a couple!

Don

Don - You haven't had an 80th??

Awesome review Andy! The 80th is by far my favorite Padron out there, besides the 40th.

 

[punk_lawyer]

Great review of a great smoke. Good job putting those pics together, that certainly adds to the review! Thanks!!! :thumbs:

 

[Not A Nice Person]

Great review. I've had a few, and like you, for me they've been worth every penny (the ones I actually bought, a stellar Shield Brother of a BOTL gifted me several also) and lived up to all the hype and then some. Just an incredible cigar.

~Boar

 

[carmike24]

Awesome review Andy. These are by far my favorite smoke. Worth every Penney. I haven't had a smoke that was as complex as the 80th maddie.
I have one in the humi for my wedding anniversary coming up at the end of the month. Can't wait to smoke it.

Mike

 

[Strayvector]

Hell of a smoke. Wish it was cheaper to be a weekly cigar...or even a monthly cigar.

 

[elderboy02]

Thanks for the review and pictures. I am going to get one of these someday

 

[BlindedByScience]

Great review. I have a box of the maddies and the regular wrapper 80ths in the cabinet and can't decide which I like more. They are wonderful, tasty, complex, and flawlessly constructed smokes. Expensive, yes, but every time I've reached for one of these, expecting something special, I've not been disappointed in the least. An ace, to be sure.... :thumbs:

It also occurs to me that I can by 80ths and 40ths, pretty much all day long.....unlike the Fuente HTF stuff. That makes the occasional splurge a little less....traumatic..... :laugh:

Cheers - B.B.S.

 

[CigarMan Andy]

Great review. I have a box of the maddies and the regular wrapper 80ths in the cabinet and can't decide which I like more. They are wonderful, tasty, complex, and flawlessly constructed smokes. Expensive, yes, but every time I've reached for one of these, expecting something special, I've not been disappointed in the least. An ace, to be sure.... :thumbs:

It also occurs to me that I can by 80ths and 40ths, pretty much all day long.....unlike the Fuente HTF stuff. That makes the occasional splurge a little less....traumatic..... :laugh:

Cheers - B.B.S.

I am picking up a box of the naturals tomorrow. Still haven't found the 40ths. But looking for a couple to try.

 

[BlindedByScience]

I am picking up a box of the naturals tomorrow. Still haven't found the 40ths. But looking for a couple to try.

I only have a few left or I'd send a couple along. I just did a quick net search and they are out there....not "that" hard to find..... :whistling:

 

[Leeroy697]

I have an 80th and a 40th maduro sitting in the humidor since last fall. Waiting till the summer to give them a try since the weather sucks here. I am really looking forward to it.

 

[Sweetrice80]

Great review. I have a box of the maddies and the regular wrapper 80ths in the cabinet and can't decide which I like more. They are wonderful, tasty, complex, and flawlessly constructed smokes. Expensive, yes, but every time I've reached for one of these, expecting something special, I've not been disappointed in the least. An ace, to be sure.... :thumbs:

It also occurs to me that I can by 80ths and 40ths, pretty much all day long.....unlike the Fuente HTF stuff. That makes the occasional splurge a little less....traumatic..... :laugh:

Cheers - B.B.S.

I am picking up a box of the naturals tomorrow. Still haven't found the 40ths. But looking for a couple to try.

Andy, many 40ths you want? I can get my hands on those easily just let me know. or ask Jon. I know at the shop they have boxes of them.

David

 

[The Green Monkey]

Great review, Andy! I just had my first one of these recently, so I hope you don't mind if I just tack my review on to the end of yours. If you do, please let me know and I'll get it out of your hair...

I smoked an 80th Maduro on Valentine's Day and while I didn't hate it or anything, I didn't think it quite lived up to the hype.

My wife and I went down to Marathon to have lobster reubens and stone crab claws at Keys Fisheries and watch the sun set over the Gulf. It was a great time and a great drive featuring one of my all-time favorite roads--Card Sound Road. It's a ~20 mile, $1 toll road that is one of two ways to get from the mainland onto the Keys. It's got very long, flat straightaways with good visibility and hardly any points of entry, so as far as places to go to really let your car perform, it's among the most scenic and safe (at least as far as off-track sites) places I can imagine. While I won't divulge our best rate of progress, I will say that we made quite exceptional time through this segment of our journey and would have done even better but for the fact that my wife grows annoyed with me a bit before the rev limiter has a chance to kick in.

Anyway, we had been wanting to try the lobster reubens (over 100,000 sold!) for a while, and we figured that Valentine's Day would be a perfect time for a nice, relaxing field trip. It was also the 10th birthday of our sock monkey Contents, so he came along for the outing as well.

I wasn't overwhelmed by the sandwich. I liked it, and while there are meals I will (and have) driven four or six hours for, the lobster reuben isn't one of them. I'll probably stop by for another one when I'm in the area next, but it wasn't as remarkable as I had hoped. The sauerkraut wasn't overpowering (I usually order it on the sides of reubens since I seem to like less of it on my sandwiches than most people) and the bread and cheese were also mild enough not to overpower the lobster. The stone crab claws were great (this is where Joe's on South Beach gets theirs from) and were paired with a complex Worcestershire-ish brown mustard sauce, and the crab rangoon was also delicious with a very interesting tangy, gingery, zingy, fruity sauce. I had a cold bottle of Budweiser and a glass of water, my wife had a Corona with lime and a glass of water.

After our meal, we headed over to a park bench on the dike at the marina to watch the sun set and for me to light up my fancy-pants cigar. I purchased it in mid-July, intending to smoke it after dinner on our wedding anniversary, but I didn't get around to it that night as planned... It had been waiting on the top shelf of my humidor for a suitable occasion, and this seemed like it.

I gave it (#700232) a chop with my shiny Colibri single-blade cutter that's built into the base of my single-jet lighter which I used to get it going. It was very calm out, and the cigar lit easily and without any initial unevenness. During the first third or so, I was very surprised by how full-bodied and rich it was. While I haven't smoked every Padron out there, I normally associate their profiles with a more subtle, nuanced strength than a large-and-in-charge shout like I found with the 80th. I wouldn't go so far as to call it harsh, but I would call it a rather husky, almost unrestrained strength and texture. It was ever so slightly scratchy to my throat at first which really surprised me. Like most other Padrons I've had, it was also rather ticklish to my nose--especially at first.

At about the 1/3 mark, the ash dropped off rather unexpectedly. It certainly looked strong and firm, but I guess I moved my arm too quickly or something, because the wind certainly didn't knock it off. I didn't have the odd "alligatoring" that Andy did, but I did have a very prominent dark streak running the length of the ash where I think that under different conditions, perhaps it might have been able to do the same sort of splitting. The taste calmed down a good deal in the middle of the smoke, with more of the rich, nutty, chocolaty flavors that I expect out of Padrons coming to the forefront. The harshness really subsided, allowing much more delicate characteristics to shine through.

It really came into it's own in the last third. The smoke was silky-smooth and the flavors were all very vibrant--almost like the flavor combination found in a Chunky bar if you could switch the milk chocolate for dark. Leading up to this point, I had been a little disappointed with the cigar, but in the last third I began to change my mind. While I wouldn't call it a bargain, or even put it much higher than the middle of my "must repeat again ASAP" hierarchy, I ended it feeling at least satisfied and content with it. At the start, I was worried that I wasn't going to like it at all, and I figured if I couldn't even manage to enjoy this cigar in the most relaxing and pleasant of atmospheres that there was little hope for it to be enjoyable elsewhere.

The finish was among the best I can recall. While I don't feel that the perception you have of a cigar after you're finished smoking it should carry a whole lot of weight compared to the actual time spent smoking it, I did really enjoy the taste that was left in my mouth for an hour or two.

Like my lobster reuben, the 80th wasn't the new champion on any of my lists, and from a pure cost/benefit perspective, it probably wasn't worth the outlay, but it wasn't bad, unpleasant, or even disappointing in any way--just less awesome than I had expected. I imagine I'll take another poke at one someday, but it'll likely take a special occasion for me to pick up another 80th instead of three 1964 Exclusivos Maduros or seven or eight 3000 Maduros.

Our camera battery wasn't charged so we had to use a cameraphone to document everything.

Contents looking out the window as I drive along the Overseas Highway.

Group picture.

Me smoking the 80th (and proof to all the doubters that I do in fact own a shirt).

Contents taking a birthday puff. He's more of a Marlboro monkey, but since we quit smoking cigarettes, he'll take his nicotine wherever he can get it...

 

[Sweetrice80]

Wow, Steve, heck of a trip. Much better than mine. (I went to Cleveland :angry: ). But I guess I will have to light one up soon to get my own opinion on the cigar. Now I got a face to go with the green monkey :laugh:.


BTW

I wasn't aware that there was a rumor going around that you do not own a shirt? ??? But for my stake I am glad you found one for those pictures.


David

 

[tsmckenney]

The Padron family is very passionate about making good cigars, and I think that passion comes out in all their lines.

My $0.02 on the 80th and 40th. I've found the 40th's to be very similar to the regular 1926 line. Little to no difference, in fact. With the 80th, you've got tobacco aged 8 years (?). The differences in that cigar are clearly pronounced. Then you have the Familia 44 Reserva, which has tobacco aged 10 years (?). That cigar will bring out the 'O' face within a couple drags.

Imagine, according to Jorge, they have tobacco that is nearing 15/20 years.

 

[verhoevc]

I have not had the maduro... but the natural just didn't do it for me. I have one more natural waiting... who knows what I'll do with it. Probably keep it around for a pass or something. I DO however love me some 1964 maduros! So I can't imagine I'd hate this thing...
Chris

 

[siriusstoogie]

Great review. I have a box of the maddies and the regular wrapper 80ths in the cabinet and can't decide which I like more. They are wonderful, tasty, complex, and flawlessly constructed smokes. Expensive, yes, but every time I've reached for one of these, expecting something special, I've not been disappointed in the least. An ace, to be sure.... :thumbs:

It also occurs to me that I can by 80ths and 40ths, pretty much all day long.....unlike the Fuente HTF stuff. That makes the occasional splurge a little less....traumatic..... :laugh:

Cheers - B.B.S.

I am picking up a box of the naturals tomorrow. Still haven't found the 40ths. But looking for a couple to try.

Great Review Andy! Mind if I ask whether you can spare a fiver? :whistling:

 

[Bsneed51]

Then you have the Familia 44 Reserva, which has tobacco aged 10 years (?). That cigar will bring out the 'O' face within a couple drags.

He isn't lying about that. I saw at least two of those guys make that face smoking this cigar.

Me smoking the 80th (and proof to all the doubters that I do in fact own a shirt).

I had my doubts. :laugh: