Cigar Supper
Monday 9th June at 19:00 | Drawing Room | £79.00
The growing popularity of Rag cigar evenings has been inspiration to mark this burgeoning aspect of the Club calendar with an annual supper celebrating the passion within the Club for Cuba’s most famous export. Join likeminded members and a guest of honour for supper of two courses. Then, without too great a delay for those keen to address the business end of proceedings, relocate to the Ribbon Bar terrace for something from the mother island.
In this instance, for members pleasure, and accompanied by a welcome digestif, will be a Sancho Panza Belicoso, a cigar that may be new to some members while at the same time is a central part of Cuban cigar heritage. This rare, medium-bodied member of the Campana family is 5 1/2” in length with a ring gauge of 52. Although each to his own, prepare for mild toasty, salty and peppery tobacco flavours with leaves from the Vuelta Abajo region but, rather than spice, a very smooth and creamy finish.
The night’s digestif will be a rum from Nicaragua, a place known for producing this spirit with smooth elegance, soft tropical notes, and a gentle richness that reflects the country’s long-standing rum-making tradition. To mark the occasion of the Rag’s first annual Cuban cigar supper, members’ glasses will have some cask rum distilled in 2004 at Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua, a family-owned distillery and one of the most respected in the region. After nine years ageing undisturbed in the tropical heat of Nicaragua, in an American Oak ex-Bourbon cask sealed with traditional plantain leaves, the cask came to Britain in 2013, where it matured for a further twelve years in our cooler continental climate. This year the rum was bottled by House of Rum (https://www.house-of-rum.com), for which much thanks is already due for what is one of only 220 bottles in existence. To summarise, look forward to a well-aged Nicaraguan Rum—layered with soft fruit, delicate candy sweetness, and floral hints of violet, with a palate that is long and silky, revealing notes of banana and sweet oak that linger beautifully.
Many cigar experts heartily recommend a satisfying meal ahead of an even more satisfying smoke, such as this. Aficionados will know that, along with the likes of Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta, the name Sancho Panza hails from great literature, in this case Don Quixote, with him the servant of his errant master knight. The house dates back to 1848 so some history to mark this new addition to The Rag’s yearly traditions.