Perdomo Edicion de Silvio Connecticut 5 x 54 Robusto

It’s been a while since my last review, primarily due to my 3 week vacation with my wife in Las Vegas. I’m not a voracious gambler, but I love to play craps when the opportunity presents itself.

Since you’re throwing 6-sided dice, the opportunity for random numbers is pretty high. There are ways to mitigate the randomness. One way is to use “controlled throwing” and to utilizing the “3-V dice set” and use a soft toss towards the back wall.

The idea is to minimize the vertical rotation and eliminate the horizontal rotation of the dice. It takes quite a bit of practice, but the method increases the odds of a “good number” appearing and thus lowering the odds of the dreaded seven.

Another factor is the actual table. It seems that the larger the casino, the longer the tables. Also it seems that a large number of tables are extremely hard, especially in the dice landing areas, increasing the bounce and thereby increasing the house odds. It’s easy to tell, because harder tables make an almost harsh sound when the dice land. There are “softer” tables out there, you just have to look for them.

The Saturday before I flew back to Kuwait, I took my brother-in-law to ____ _____ _________ casino to spend a few hours drinking some beer and tossing some dice. He had played a little bit before, but was intrigued by my past successes so we bought in for $100 each. Knowing how and when to bet is a huge part of the game, so he started out by mimicking my bets. The dice came to me and I quickly found my rhythm. The dice were landing softly and barely kissing the back wall. The action started to get pretty heavy and the guys at the end of the table even made sure there was a clear lane (it’s a proven fact that if the dice bounce off someone’s chips, a seven is almost sure to appear). I tossed the dice for about 20 minutes before a seven showed up. Anyway, after a little over 2 hours at the table things started to turn cold, so we called it a night and cashed out. I walked away with just short of 1K and Bill cashed out just over $700 (He wasn’t betting quite as aggressively as me).

What does all that have to do with cigars? Well, without the score, I probably wouldn’t be doing this review because it involves a fairly pricey stick. In fact, I normally wouldn’t have ordered it (or the others which I’ll talk about later), mainly because of the price.

Today’s cigar is the Perdomo Edicion de Silvio Connecticut robusto. The EdS was the high-end Perdomo a few years back and was reintroduced last year. It’s named for Nick Perdomo’s late grandfather, Silvio Perdomo.  I remember smoking one a few years ago and it blew me away. The new version has a lot to live up to if it expects to survive.

No one can dispute the quality of the cigars that the Perdomo factory puts out. In fact out of all the Perdomo cigars I’ve tried, I can’t remember one single sub-standard stick. The EdS is no exception. It’s a beautiful cigar to look at with a glistening, virtually seamless  Connecticut-Ecuador wrapper. The filler is all Nicaraguan seco, viso, and ligero.

After firing it up, the initial notes are cashews, some hints of oak, and a touch of pepper at the back of the palate. The smoke is rich and creamy and lingers, without being obnoxious.

As the cigar progresses, some nutmeg and honey flavors appear. The burn is absolutely perfect and the ash holds firm.

The strength is at the bottom end of medium which is a pleasant change of pace from the turbocharged, knee-knocking blends that seem to be in vogue.

As the cigar approaches the end, the only thing I can think of is “that was a friggin’ awesome smoke”. Definitely not overwhelming in flavors or strength, the entire package is sublime and seems to seep into your consciousness.

I can say without hesitation that this is the finest Connecticut-wrapped cigar I’ve smoked. The only problem I have is paying close to $15-$20 per stick for a Connie. My wife actually ordered me two of these, two of the EdS maduros (I’ll review that one later), and two Opus XXX. The only reason she ordered them is she heard me talking to my brother-in-law about them and wanted to surprise me.

Would I buy a box? Probably not, because a chest of twenty robustos will set you back a bit over $300.

Would I smoke it again? Hell yea, although after I burn the last one, I’ll probably go back to the Perdomo Champagne as my go-to Connecticut.