Part One: Coffee Is His Grind

An eager aficionado waits to sample fine coffees from across the globe.

Dan Cox, president of Coffee Enterprises in Burlington, Vermont, and the session's leader, explained how his company tests coffee for the industry. Not an grower or importer of coffee, Cox evaluates its physical properties for those who buy or blend it.

Those who thought they were in for a quick caffeine infusion didn't get it. As Cox explained, "If you really want a caffeine high, you should buy the worst coffee you can get." That's not what he was pouring. What was offered was a selection of different coffee from five growing regions and a primer on how it is evaluated, plus a Davidoff Millennium Series petit corona to pair with the coffee.

The first order of business was instruction in tasting, which, Cox said, involves three elements: physical ability, taste/aroma memory and language. The third element is by far the hardest for would-be tasters, he said. For the small fraction who lack the physical ability, a little mental exercise will help them overcome the second barrier, but most people lack the vocabulary to describe what they taste. Therefore he offered a mini-lecture in the words with which coffee tasters describe what they are sampling.

Bitter, sweet, sour and salty are the four basic taste sensations. Everything else is a combination of those tastes. Different areas of the tongue and mouth register those flavors.

A cacophony of clinking cups and snorting sounds resulted when Cox explained how to take the coffee to each part of the mouth to make full evaluation. The last maneuver was something he called a larynx pump that drives the liquid around the back of the mouth.

As much of the coffee was meant for blending, Cox predicted that "many of you are not going to like some of the coffees tasted here today." Much like other blended beverages, some components may not be very palatable on their own, but remain an integral part of the mixture.

The roll-your-own cigar seminar followed the coffee tasting. The jury is still out on whether the ingestion of caffeine made for more efficient new apprentices or the slipshod handiwork of jittery fingers (see story).

--Jack Bettridge

Part Two: Spirits

James Suckling and Jack Bettridge, right, debate the merits of rum, Cognac, Scotch and Bourbon.

At the end of a long weekend, a few hundred spirits fans filed into the last ballroom, taking their seats in a room heady with the sweet scent of rum, Cognac, Scotch and Bourbon. Seated at the front of the room were James Suckling, European editor of Cigar Aficionado, and Jack Bettridge, senior features editor of Cigar Aficionado. Their goal was to lead the crowd in a tasting of all four spirits, and compare each to two fine cigars.

"I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a disadvantage," said Suckling, looking over the room. He told the crowd he had met with Bettridge in New York City, planning to try the different spirits. "But by the time I had arrived for the tasting, Jack had drunk everything."

Bettridge scowled good-heartedly at his co-worker. "So?"

The audience laughed and turned to their tumblers. Each contained a sample of a wonderful spirit. The first had The Glenlivet 18, a single-malt Scotch from the Speyside region of the country. The second contained Maker's Mark, a single-barrel Bourbon produced in Kentucky. The third had Rémy Martin XO Excellence Cognac, one of the premier bottlings of France's Rémy Martin. The final glass held Bacardi 8, one of the smoothest sipping rums in the world.

The cigars were equally impressive. The first, the milder of the two, was a La Flor Dominicana 2000 Series, made in the Dominican Republic. The second was a new brand from Honduras, an Astral Talanga Valley Selection from U.S. Cigar Sales Inc. The sweet smell of spirits was soon joined by the rich aroma of fine tobacco, and the seminar began.

"A lot of times in pairing, either the cigar or spirit helps the other one along," said Bettridge. He and Suckling encouraged the audience to determine how the spirits helped each cigar, and vice versa.

The audience and the panelists smoked the La Flor Dominicana first. "I think Cameroon really is great wrapper," said Suckling, looking over the toothy leaf covering the La Flor. The cigar was rich but not strong; the audience felt the La Flor paired fairly well with the Glenlivet and the Maker's, but thought it a poor match with the Cognac. The majority felt it was best paired with the intense sweetness of the Bacardi 8.

The Astral, which the audience preferred to the La Flor, was thought to be a fine match with the Cognac. "Cognac is typically thought of as the classic pairing with cigars," said Bettridge. "That's probably mostly a function of the fact that Cognac is drunk after dinner, when the dinner parties are going off to smoke their cigars. It might not be a reflection that the spirit is the best partner for cigars."

One quarter of the audience felt the Rémy was the best partner with their cigars, which has a wrapper grown in the Talanga Valley of Honduras. They were less enamored of how it matched with The Glenlivet, and even less happy with how it matched with the Maker's. Again, the rum was the preferred pairing: 60 percent of the audience liked the Astral best with the Bacardi.

Rum is a natural pairing for cigars, being made in most cigar-producing countries. Bacardi, originally a Cuban brand, moved production to Puerto Rico after Fidel Castro took power. "Rum is a sugar-based drink," said Bettridge. "The quality of rum fluctuates. This is one of the finest rums made."

Suckling told the audience that the most important thing to remember in pairings is personal taste. "The key thing is what works best with you," he said.

The mood of the crowd was raucous and upbeat. The audience was full of smiles as the last event of the Las Vegas Big Smoke drew to a close.

--David Savona