Initial Thoughts
Part 3 of Alec Bradley review is featuring the Alec Bradley Sanctum. I’ve seen this cigar around and on the shelves and hadn’t picked it up yet. I think the reason being the name Sanctum, for some reason I was equating that with Asylum and the somewhat negative word association with Asylum… That’s what happens when you ain’t so smart and can’t remember them good words… Nonetheless I finally picked one up for this review week. Not to drop too many spoilers, but I’m sure happy that I did!
The Alec Bradley Sanctum is a unique cigar in the fact that it leverages tobacco from 4 different countries. One of which is Costa Rica, which to be honest I don’t hear that much about other than that they always give away trips to this country on Wheel of Fortune. I would love to go visit sometime, but I haven’t heard that much about their tobacco producing region so I was honestly a little taken a back when I was reading about the Sanctum and it cites that the binder comes from Costa Rica. I thought it was pretty exciting and a nice little dose of something new in a cigar blend.
The wrapper comes from Honduras and the corojo varietal. The filler comes from Colombia (another unique tobacco growing region that you don’t typically hear about), Nicaragua and Honduras. When I Googled ‘Sanctum’ I got this for the definition: a sacred place, especially a shrine within a temple or church. I can get behind that. I love the idea that cigars and the time that you smoke are a sacred place. It’s a good reminder to slow down and enjoy things. Without further ado, let’s jump and kick this thing off!
Looks
The Alec Bradley Sanctum has a pretty bold band wrapped on it. A strong outline of powerful and shiny black catches your attention. It’s accented hit bits of gold piping throughout. That classic AB shield is in the middle provides a nice piece of unity across all the blends. The box is also attention grabbing, it has a unique construction to it that lifts it up off the ground with each of the 4 corners. I love the attention to detail that it has as well. It sets it apart and gives it a kind of special call out. For some reason when I see the box and combine the definition of Sanctum it makes me think about the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones. I don’t know, it’s a weird connection but there might be something to it. Or again, I might just be light on vocabulary for coming up with the right term right now.
It’s a beautiful dark chocolate wrapper with minimal veins and a nice texture that’s easy to grab a hold of. The filler is packed a little tight throughout the barrel which I’m afraid might provide some resistance when smoking, but we’ll get to that next!
Smoking
Ahh, yes as I suspected there is a bit of air flow issues through the barrel. I’m able to get the Alec Bradley Sanctum lit just fine but drawing air through the barrel is a bit of workout. So i work my magic and massage the filler tobacco by squeezing the cigar between my thumb and fore finger. After the first third I’m able to get a decent draw on it and it’s really producing some nice smoke. That’s the only issue that I had the entir
e time smoking. I wasn’t overly concerned with it, but I do like to get a good dose of smoke to taste all the flavors on the retrohale. Speaking of flavors…
Flavor
I was really interested in seeing what this cigar produced in terms of flavor knowing that it had some unique tobaccos represented in it. On the initial nosing of the Alec Bradley Sanctum I picked up on sweet tobacco, a floral note, and some fruit similar to raisins with hints of citrus. Very sweet overall.
Once I got it burning the flavors morphed into a nice soft spice, with some oak notes. That tobacco flavor was hanging around overlayed with a bit of salty flavor and white pepper.
What I loved about this cigar is that it wasn’t in your face. It was very well balanced. One flavor didn’t overtake the others they all worked very well together.
Would I Buy It Again?
Very much so.
Is It an Every Day Smoke?
Maybe, but it’d have to be in a different size. I can’t smoke Toros on a daily basis.
Would I Buy a Box?
I think it’s box worthy for sure.
Conclusion
I love being surprised by cigars. For some reason I have a jaded idea when I smoke new cigars that I’m probably going to hate it and I’m going to be sitting there wishing I was smoking one of my favorite cigars. When I’m happily surprised by how good a new cigar is it always adds to the smoking experience in a very positive way! With that said, this Alec Bradley Sanctum was excellent. I loved the flavor profile on this stick and it made up for the smoking issues with the filler being too full. So if you come across this cigar I highly recommend picking one up. I think the flavor profile is well worth giving it a try!
If you’ve had this cigar I’d love to hear what you thought about it down below in the comments.
