Luxury Cigar Club SNBN

By Tony Casas | August 8, 2022

While temperatures are finally starting to drop a little bit here in El Paso, I am sure our friends in Cottonwood, Luxury Cigar Club are still feeling the heat. This week we take a look at their newest offering the SNBN paired with a can of The Bruery’s While Chocolate Strawberry wheatwine beer.

The Good Stuff:

Luxury Cigar Club out of Cottonwood, Arizona dropped it’s newest release, SNBN or Shall Not Be Named. Created at the  Tabacalera Diaz Cabrera factory in Dominican Republic this cigar starts out with an Ecuadorian wrapper over Dominican binder and filler tobaccos. The cigar is offered in a single 5.5 x 52 format running $10.99 per stick and comes packaged in boxes of 20. You can purchase these directly from Luxury Cigar Club’s website here. There is quite a bit of mystery behind this un-banded and mostly unbranded cigar:

Luxury Cigar Club is proud to welcome its newest offering, SNBN, or Shall Not Be Named. This masterpiece was made at Tabacalera Diaz Cabrera, in the Dominican Republic. It wears an Ecuadorian wrapper with Dominican insides. This silky smooth cigar is bursting with notes of cedar, coffee, cream, honey, and just the right amount of pepper. This cigar is versatile enough to enjoy with a cup of coffee, or enjoy after dinner. SNBN pairs very well with a scotch or low-proof bourbon. We hope you like this cigar as much as we enjoyed making it!

When working on this cigar we wanted to pay tribute to the true masters of the craft of blending. While we cannot say who blended this cigar because of legal reasons, we can say that you do know who it is and have smoked many cigars by the blender.

SNBN is surrounded in legal issues, which is why we are adamant at getting it to you to smoke! SNBN was going to be called #$&*@ (Sorry, we are not legally allowed to say that either) The cigar was going to release at the 2022 PCA show, but because of a cease and desist letter we had to stop the shipment, unpack the cigars, and work on a re-brand. 

From the Luxury Cigar Club website

And there you have it. While the information is limited, there are quite a few guesses on who blended this cigar that could be made. Huge thanks to our friends at Luxury Cigar Club for sending a few samples our way for review.

• Size: 5.5 x 52
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian
• Binder: Dominican
• Filler: Dominican
• Body: Medium/Full
• Strength: Medium
• Price: $10.99
• Pairing: Bruery White Chocolate Strawberry (Wheatwine 13.5% ABV)

Prelight:

The SNBN starts out with a beautiful specimen for a wrapper. The color is a very consistent light brown with a light yellow sheen. The wrapper’s texture if pretty smooth with very little tooth and a ton of oil coating it. The wrapper is laid over itself very well and the cigar as a whole showcases only a few larger veins running through the body up to it’s round, triple-wrapped cap.

The wrapper on the Luxury Cigar Club SNBN starts out with notes of oat and honey while the foot of the cigar is much more earthy with notes of natural tobacco, moss, and musk. The cap cut clean and easily using my Xikar double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces minor honey and cashew notes over moss and a whole mess of earthiness.

First Third:

The Luxury Cigar Club SNBN starts out with a whole mess of moss, earthiness, and musk over lighter notes of honey, cashew, vanilla and leather. There is also this awesome sweet leather that keeps peeping in and out. The draw is flawless as every puffs kicks out huge clouds of thick, white smoke which hangout for quite some time before dissipating while the cigar releases only minor amounts of smoke white it rests in my ashtray. The burn line is razor thin leaving behind a very tightly compacted trail of white and light gray ash which held on for an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of Luxury Cigar Club’s SNBN the flavor profile has remained much of the same. Loads of moss, earthiness and musk over honey cashew and leather as well as some minor black coffee. There is also this random cranberry that keeps poking its head into the profile every so often. The retrohale adds an awesome spice that I don’t really pickup otherwise so I find myself doing it quite often. I close out the second third with nothing in therms of nicotine.

Finish:

Into the final third of the SNBN and the flavor profile has remained mostly the same, but has really ramped up in body into the homestretch. The musk, moss and earthiness own the flavor profile with notes of honey, cashew, leather, coffee and that cranberry is still hanging in there. This cigar was very straight forward with no complaints here as I rather enjoyed the profile quite a bit. It took me almost two hours to burn this slow-burning cigar down to the nub and I experienced no harshness, nor any extended heat. In fact, this cigar burned like a dream from start to finish. I close out with only a very minor nicotine kick.

Overview:

The Luxury Cigar Club SNBN offers a very premium experience with a very welcoming flavor profile and a very modest price. The cigar feels so familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. It reminds me of some of the Uber-premium cigars such as AVO or Davidoff and offers a similar experience only at a fraction of the cost. Either way, it’s a great offering and one that I wouldn’t mind having quite a few more on hand.

Pairing:

The Bruery’s White Chocolate has become a staple in many beer cellars. Last year they released a strawberry version of their famous beer. Coming in at 13.5% this bourbon barrel aged wheatwine is brewed with strawberry, cacao nibs, and vanilla beans. The beer leads with honey, vanilla, malt, light hop and a great amount of strawberry which is balance perfectly as to not overpower the other great flavors found in the beer. The beer carries a surprisingly light mouthfeel and finishes with more vanilla, sweet strawberry and a great tartness on the aftertaste. I loved how beautifully this beer paired with the Luxury Cigar Club’s SNBN as the honey and vanilla married up perfectly with the flavors found in the cigar and the strawberry helped compliment not only the cigar’s flavor profile but also the random cranberry that peeked into the experience every so often.