Rocky Patel The Edge 20th Anniversary Staff Review
When Rocky Patel and his right-hand man, Nimish Desai, also known as ND, showed up for a recent Rocky event at Holt’s headquarters in Philly, we kicked back over some good Scotch and a bunch of cigars, including the Rocky Patel The Edge 20th Anniversary I’m smoking in a 6-by-52 Toro for today’s review.
It’s hard to believe Rocky’s budget-friendly franchise, called The Edge, has been around for two whole decades. The Edge has been a major cornerstone in Rocky’s portfolio. It catapulted his brand into retail shops around the country in conjunction with his Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 and Vintage 1992 cigars. The Edge cigars come in several unique blends today, because Rocky knows, like every great cigar-maker, it’s critical to produce good cigars at different price points. The Edge cigars were created for budget-conscious consumers looking to explore Rocky Patel cigars without splurging on price, not unlike Rocky’s top-selling Mulligans brand.
Despite the entry-level reputation of The Edge brand, Rocky put something special together to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. The Edge 20th Anniversary is blended from a reddish-brown Ecuador Sumatra wrapper leaf over a solid marriage of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-filler tobaccos. Rocky chose older tobaccos for this kicked-up version of The Edge, and he spared no expense packaging the cigars in elegant maroon-and-silver boxes and bands with shiny gold lettering.
When I remove an oily Toro from a new box, a strong bouquet of leather, earth, and raisin braces my nostrils with a hearty spice when I run the cigar directly under my beak. The Edge 20th Anniversary Toro is a good-looking smoke. When I slip the band off the foot and cut the head, I get a nice sequence of sweet and leathery tasting notes while I spin the cigar around in my mouth a few times and take an introductory cold puff.
I’ve always liked other blends in The Edge collection, especially the Habano and the original Edge, which is finished in a Corojo wrapper leaf. They’re heartier cigars that are great to smoke with cold beer around a bonfire. The 20th Anniversary is definitely smooth and more refined as the tobaccos settle into an even burn when I finish toasting the foot. Spicy notes of hickory and black pepper mingle with hints of cayenne and fresh coffee. The draw is ideal, and the burn is razor sharp throughout the first ten minutes.
Rocky Patel 20th Anniversary is intense but balanced. I can pick up traces of root beer and nuts when the cigar’s spicy aftertaste recedes in between puffs. A touch of birch bark comes into play as well. Overall, this Toro displays a lot of classic Rocky flavors. It’s dense too. Heavy clouds of white smoke hang below my ceiling tiles like a winter fog as I savor the middle of this intriguing Edge from Rocky. I’ve only knocked its charcoal-gray ash off into my ashtray a few times after forty minutes.
Some of the intricate flavors that initially developed fade in the second half while a straightforward, succulent profile of leather, black pepper, and raisin resonates with a woody aftertaste. Rocky Patel 20th Anniversary is more expensive than the rest of The Edge cigars, but it’s also more complex and lacks any abrasive flavor.
I’m rating Rocky Patel 20th Anniversary a solid 86 points and consider it on par with other premiums in Rocky’s core portfolio. If you enjoy the basic and reliable taste of most cigars in The Edge franchise, but you want to smoke something with more character, add The Edge 20th Anniversary to your next order. You’ll be glad you did.
