Welcome this is the fourth pairing in our October/November cigar pairing series. Today I paired together the Tatuaje Wolfie and Prichard’s Tennessee Whiskey. I wasn’t quite sure how this pairing was going to work, usually I have a good idea going in whether or not this going to be a good pairing or not. If you read the review on the whiskey you’ll know I was a huge fan of it so i have some high expectations. However, this cigar is also my favorite out of the set so far. I have some high hopes for this pairing but only time will tell if it lives up to my expectations. Let’s jump in and see what happens.
First Third
Similar to the first Wolfie that I smoked, this one started out with quite a bit of spice and pepper. It comes out and really punches you in the teeth. So what happens when you throw alcohol into the fire? Yeah you got it… an explosion. Not really a great one either.
I’ve been trying different tasting techniques when I do cigar pairings. Today, I let the whiskey sit on my tongue and really coat it, then I swallowed it and immediately took a big drag off the Wolfie. I held the smoke in and then I started to feel a lot of tingling on my tongue. Tingling is a nice word, in fact it felt like my damn tongue was on fire. It wasn’t a pleasant, I had to grab my emergency glass of water and wash it all down. I’m pretty sure I singed my taste buds (ok not really, but it sounds dramatic).
There was a ton of heat on the backend of this pairing. Like I said it was fairly uncomfortable. The whiskey really brought out more spice from the cigar. Unfortunately at this point they weren’t working together very well. They just causing one giant fire dance on my tongue.
Second Third
Moving into the 2nd third the story was more of the same. Lots of spice and heat. However, half way through this third, yeah I know it’s confusing to think about that. So maybe that’s actually half way through the whole cigar? I’m bad at math. I have it written down in my notes as “half way through the 2nd third”, it makes sense to me.
Anyway, half way through the Wolfie started to mellow out some. Just like in the original review. It’s been identical so far, which is nice. The whiskey began to open up as well. Maybe it was because it was 34 degrees outside and it was starting to chill. Or maybe because I couldn’t taste the strength anymore because my tasted buds were fried.
Either way, I also tried a new ‘infusing’ technique that I learned from my buddy Will over at Puro Maduro. What I did was take a big drag off the cigar, and blow it into my whiskey glass. Then I placed my hand on top to keep the smoke in. Next I swirled the glass around to try and try and get the whiskey to open up some and take in some of the aroma of the smoke. I’m not a scientist, but this seemed to kinda work. I lifted my hand off and let the smoke out then I took a nice swallow of the whiskey, and it had a smokey flavor to it. I didn’t pick up any of the spice that I get from the Wolfie, but it did affect the flavor some.
Final Third
The last third, coming down the homestretch. I wish I could tell you this cigar pairing got better, but I can’t. It just stayed the same, the cigar dialed down the spice and mellowed out even more. The whiskey was still the star of the show. The smooth and creamy flavor from the whiskey just didn’t mesh well with the spice and pepper from the cigar. It’s a bummer, but thats what happens.
Conclusion
These flavors were combative from the very beginning. The spice from the cigar went toe to toe with the whiskey. They both accented each other, not in a good way. At least not for me. Some of you may like to have the devil do a fire dance on your tongue. Me personally, I’ll pass. It’s hard to write such a negative pairing, because I liked the Wolfie and the Tennessee Whiskey so well on their own. Oh well, they’ll make it on their own, they don’t need each other.
I’d love to hear your comments below, why do you think these two didn’t get along better in this pairing?
