The bottle
Joseph Magnus Cigar Blend Bourbon$199.99
The back story
Americans continue to enjoy their bourbon and other domestic-made bourbons. Sales have actually skyrocketed for the classification over the last few years, with the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States reporting that they reached almost $5.1 billion in 2022.
Lots of Americans have likewise constantly enjoyed a great stogie. And nowadays, they’re revealing their gratitude more than ever. Imports of premium (or hand-rolled) stogies have actually grown from 330 million stogies in 2017 to 464.5 million in 2022, according to the Premium Cigar Association.
All of that makes a cigar-friendly bourbon a natural, no?
Joseph Magnus, a Michigan-based distillery whose roots go back to the pre-prohibition period, has actually been offering such a bourbon (and a relatively high-end one) for the last couple of years. It’s launched routinely in restricted amounts and batches are usually gone relatively rapidly, according to Matt Overway, production supervisor for the brand name.
How do you craft a bourbon that sets with a stogie? Overway states it’s everything about having a sip that’s abundant enough to withstand those powerful tobacco tastes.
Part of that has to do with the evidence– indicating it requires be boozy sufficient to holds its own (the Cigar Blend we attempted clocked in a relatively alcoholic 114 evidence). It’s likewise about aging the spirit to a specific maturity, so it ought to come as no surprise that Cigar Blend is a mix of scotches aged in between approximately 10 to 18 years. Plus, the bourbon is ended up in barrels that previously held Armagnac, so the French brandy includes its own notes of sweet intricacy to the mix, Overway describes.
What we think of it
I’m a cigar-loving bourbon drinker so I was specifically curious about this one. To Overway’s point, it’s a huge, strong bourbon that can quickly satisfy the difficulty of coupling with a huge, strong stogie. You’ll get notes of vanilla and dried fruit, a little tip of spice and a boozy kick with each sip– in all, rather hearty and tasty.
My only quibble is that you do not truly require to invest $200 to discover an excellent bourbon (or other spirit) to delight in with a stogie. I especially like aged rums and Calvados, a French apple brandy, with my smokes– and those can be discovered for well under $100, to state absolutely nothing of other tasty bourbons that can be had for far less than $200. Still, the Magnus Cigar Blend is rather a pleasure.
How to enjoy it
Overway recommends having this cool if you’re combining it with a stogie, so the evidence remains high. If you desire to drink it sans stogie, he recommends attempting it with some ice and letting it gradually mix into the bourbon. “I like the journey of the evidence modification as the cube melts,” he states.