When you think about historical figures who enjoyed whiskey and cigars together, people such as Mark Twain or Winston Churchill may come to mind. But it has only been in the last few years that whiskey brands and cigar manufacturers have started to work together to create pairings that cater to lovers of both.
Drew Estate partnered with Pappy & Co to create the Pappy Van Winkle Barrel Fermented Cigar almost a decade ago, but it wasn’t necessarily meant to pair with its namesake bourbon, only to appeal to those who enjoyed that brand. A few years later, Sazerac partnered with General Tobacco to release the WL Weller Cohiba and Buffalo Trace cigars, which actually were meant to be enjoyed with their respective namesake bourbons. Now, the Huber’s Starlight Distillery has partnered with Alec Bradley Cigars to create the duo’s second collaboration — a package that includes both bourbon and cigars that were expertly tailored for the enjoyment of those who love whiskey and cigars and want to enjoy them together.
“Both Alec and Bradley Rubin came to the distillery to talk about doing a single barrel and to go through our whiskey portfolios,” says Christian Huber, distiller at Huber’s Starlight Distillery. “My dad, my brother Blake, and I met with them, and it’s always exciting to meet people with common interests, as the cigar community and the whiskey community are very similar. It’s all about terroir, the origins, and the production methods, so we were able to really geek out. The collaboration was kind of borne of that geekiness. We originally were going to do one pairing and that was the first release we did, but things went so well, they came back and wanted to do a second one.”
For the second pairing, Alec and Bradley Rubin had selected the Alec Bradley Gatekeeper cigar and went to Huber’s Starlight Distillery in Starlight, Indiana to look for the perfect whiskey to pair with it. Huber was familiar with Alec Bradley Cigars before meeting the Rubins a few years ago, so when it came time to lead them through tasting some barrels, he already had several options in mind.
“We tried to pick barrels that were going to complement the cigars,” explains Huber. “It was a little bit more about the uniqueness of our barrel-finishing program and how we can highlight those secondary and tertiary flavor profiles. And we worked hand in hand [to figure out] how long we should take those barrels into the aging process or how short. And then eventually as we got closer to bottling, that’s when we started smoking the cigars and really understood where that product needed to be.”
The process of tasting whiskeys at Huber’s Starlight Distillery can go in a few different directions depending on the group doing the tasting. There’s not a set lineup of products that can be tasted at any given time. The distillery focuses on a vast assortment of finishing barrels, from half a dozen types of rum cask finishes to obscure Amburana or even Armagnac finishes, which can be vastly different from one month to the next. While tastings generally start with the straight whiskey offerings, by half an hour in Huber is usually climbing through barrel racks to thieve out whiskey from uniquely finished barrels.
“We guide people in a direction by showing them a straight bourbon, a straight rye, and then some finished bourbons, some finished ryes,” Huber says. “We let them guide us to where they want to be. Everyone has their own palate and we really wanted those two guys to guide us to where they wanted to be. When you consider the secondary and tertiary flavors that you can get out of a finishing cask, we really want to elevate our bourbons and ryes that way. When it comes to clients being here on site, we tell them it’s a finishing cask, but we let them be the judge of it before we tell them what it is. And that’s what makes our program so special — you’re discovering flavor profiles that you might not have gravitated to unless you did it blind.”
Huber says the group tried upwards of 20 barrels with various finishes after trying the straight bourbon and straight rye whiskeys. Tastings were blind at first, but then Huber would give information about the type of whiskey, type of finishing barrel, and length of time in each barrel. There were some especially strong contenders in the mix, including a couple of Amburana-finished whiskeys, and when they finally decided on bourbon finished with vino de naranja (VDN), they tried numerous VDN-finished barrels and sent samples of only the very strongest contenders home with the Rubins.
“The sweetness and complexity of the finishing barrels is what Alec and Bradley really gravitated to,” Huber says. “We agreed that the pairing with those finishing barrels was so special because of the elevated sweetness. We did, unbeknownst to us in the blind tasting, try some rum barrel finishes. We have everything from Barbados to Jamaican to Fiji rum barrels. We just gravitated more to the naranja finish. Nothing against the rum finishes, but we really let Alec and Bradley gravitate towards what their palates were feeling like.”
The Rubins made a second trip back to Huber’s Starlight Distillery, once they had had the opportunity to recover from their palate fatigue and try their whiskey samples in their own environment to make their final selections. That is when the Hubers and the Rubins finally had a chance to try the Alec Bradley Gatekeeper with the final selection of the VDN-finished Carl T Huber’s Bourbon, and all agreed the pairing worked well together.
“The one thing I will say too is, I know this isn’t only a Starlight thing, but drink the whiskey and smoke the cigar you want,” Huber says. “With a lot of people, they want to drink their whiskey because they’re told they’ll enjoy it in certain ways. And what I would say is, pairings like this are going to be different for everybody. So enjoy the palate that you have and be able to express what you like. At the end of the day, that is what makes this industry so much fun — there are so many different personalities and so many different types of flavor profiles that make this so amazing.”
The Alec Bradley Gatekeeper Corona four-pack and Starlight Distillery Carl T Huber’s Bourbon Finished in Vino de Naranja Barrels are sold together as a package for $100 exclusively at Bourbon Outfitter. Visit bourbonoutfitter.com/collections/alec-bradley to order.
Alec Bradley Gatekeeper Corona And Starlight Carl T Huber's Bourbon Finished In Vino de Naranja Barrels
Alan Rubin founded Alec Bradley cigars in 1996, named for his two sons, Alec and Bradley Rubin. This 5.1x42 corona features an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers and is manufactured in the Dominican Republic at the Ernesto Perez-Carrillo factory. Upon first light, this cigar has predominant notes of baking spice, cocoa powder, and espresso. The VDN-finished bourbon has predominant notes of orange blossom and vanilla on the nose, cinnamon, leather, and orange blossom honey on the palate, and a warm honey and citrus peel finish. When paired together, the bourbon brings out toasted nuts, saddle leather, and herbal saddle soap in the cigar. The cigar highlights the bourbon’s leather notes, makes the cinnamon pop, and creates a finish featuring warm cinnamon-roasted nuts. It is clear that a lot of thought went into the end user’s all-round enjoyment of this whiskey and cigar duo.
Where To Smoke
Riverside Cigar Shop
201 Spring Street,
Jeffersonville, IN 47130
Riversidecigars.com
Thanks to a total smoking ban in Louisville, Kentucky, Riverside Cigar Shop is the closest full-service indoor cigar lounge and bar in the Louisville Metro area. Fortunately for those wanting to cross the bridge, it is just five minutes from downtown, about a mile from the first exit once you enter Indiana on a historic and beautiful block of boutiques which include a 127-year-old candy shop and museum. The walk-in humidor is cavernous and features great brands such as Viaje, Alec Bradley, Tatuaje, La Palina, and one of the most extensive offerings of Drew Estate lines in the area. There is also a substantial bourbon list, which has earned this bourbon and cigar hotspot several mentions for being a top-notch whiskey bar in the area. Local beers are always on tap and cocktails are made from scratch with top-shelf ingredients.
No matter what libations you want to pair with your cigar, Match Cigar Bar has you covered. There is plenty of comfortable seating, from leather chairs and couches to booths with tables, so plan to bring friends and make yourself comfortable. The bar opens in the evening, but you can still stop by the cigar shop side during daytime hours.
