Welcome back to the Blend of the Week. 🔥

Every Monday we put one cigar under the microscope: what's in it, how it smokes, how it's been received, and whether it's worth your money. This week, the Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Champagne Epicure: the mellow Connecticut where Perdomo's bourbon barrel story began.

Nick Perdomo Jr. started this company in a Miami garage in 1992, with a handful of rollers and his wife Janine on the packing table. Cigars were already the family trade: his grandfather Silvio rolled in Cuba for H. Upmann and Partagás. Today Perdomo is fully vertically integrated in Estelí, with its own farms in Estelí, Condega and Jalapa, its own box factory, and a process the company counts at 3,054 steps from seed to finished cigar.

The Champagne is where one of those steps began. Perdomo ages leaf in charred American white oak bourbon barrels, where the char caramelizes the tobacco's color and flavor, and the company kept the technique a family secret for years. This blend is where barrel-aging wrappers started for Perdomo. Nicholas Perdomo Sr. named the finished leaf, golden and butterscotch in color, the Champagne of wrappers.

The barrel is now a Perdomo signature, and it shows up across this same 10th Anniversary family on the box-pressed Sun Grown and Maduro. Cigar Journal named Perdomo Best Brand of Nicaragua in 2018. The Champagne is the mellow one in the family, and the one that started it all.

Flavor is personal, and we don't fake a chair we didn't sit in. Here is what this blend's makeup, and the smokers who have burned through it, keep pointing to.

What's in it. Connecticut shade is the classic light wrapper: grown under cloth, which keeps the leaf thin, silky and mild. Perdomo's is grown in Ecuador, where heavy cloud cover does a lot of that shading naturally, and then it goes into the barrels. Underneath sit Cuban-seed Nicaraguan binder and filler aged a minimum of six years, which is where the oak and gentle spice come from. Every Perdomo is draw-tested and rests six to eight months in the aging room before it ships. Expect the Epicure's 54 ring to give the filler room to speak, so it reads a touch richer than the slimmer Corona Extra.

How it smokes. Synthesized from Perdomo's own notes, published reviews and retailer tasting notes, plus what these leaves typically do. Not a smoke we're claiming we took.

Pre-light: sweet hay and a little honey off the wrapper, with an easy, open draw.

First third: cream right away, then caramel, toasted nuts and the lightest touch of spice. Reviewers keep landing on the same word: smooth.

Second third: roasted nuts and a little earth, with oak and cedar stepping forward and a faint anise note one reviewer picked up. Coffee and honey round it out.

Final third: the sweetness comes back, caramel and graham cracker over a gentle red pepper finish. The pepper climbs a little near the band, which is your cue to slow down.

Construction: the consistency is the reputation. Reviewers report a thin, even burn line and a firm ash that hangs on for a long stretch. Budget 60 to 90 minutes for the Epicure.

How it's been received. Very well, and for a very long time. The Champagne wears a 93 from Cigar Journal, and Cigar Aficionado scored the Champagne Torpedo 89 in 2020, praising its creaminess along with floral and oak notes. The biggest vote comes from smokers: the line holds a perfect five stars across more than 1,300 reviews at Cigars International, and Holt's calls it the bestselling blend in Perdomo's portfolio for decades. The one calibration: this is a mild-to-medium cigar by design. If you want more muscle, the box-pressed Sun Grown and Maduro are the medium-full end of the same family.

Pair it with. Perdomo suggests Scotch and bourbon, and bourbon is the natural call given where the wrapper spent its time. Go wheated, a Weller or a Maker's Mark, so the pour stays soft enough not to bury the cream. It's also one of the great morning coffee cigars: a café con leche meets the cream and nut notes halfway. Wine drinker? A lightly oaked Chardonnay works, and a glass of actual Champagne is the fun call. Best in the morning or early afternoon, before a heavy meal dulls the palate.

Who it's for. New smokers first. It's mellow, forgiving and consistent, exactly what you want when you hand a friend their first cigar. But it's no training wheel: plenty of veterans keep a box as their everyday morning Connecticut. If you live on Nicaraguan pepper, this will feel gentle; grab the 10th Anniversary Maduro for evenings and keep the Champagne Epicure for mornings.

Where to buy. Easy: the Champagne is stocked just about everywhere Perdomo is sold. Our shop this week is Cigars Daily, which has the Epicure in singles, five-packs and boxes of 25. MSRP is $11.75 a stick and $293.75 for the box, and Cigars Daily has the box at $264.38. A five-pack is the low-risk way in.

The Perdomo Champagne Epicure is the mellow Connecticut that started Perdomo's bourbon barrel story, and it's still the one most people reach for. Barrel-aged Ecuadorian wrapper, six-year Nicaraguan tobacco, and cream and caramel over a gentle spice, built consistently enough to earn a fan base that has lasted decades. Light one with your morning coffee, hand one to the friend who has never smoked a cigar, and keep a few in the humidor for yourself.

🔥 Smoked the Champagne Epicure yet? Hit reply and tell us where it landed. And if there's a blend you want us to break down next week, send it our way.