Like most creative types, cigar blenders are prone to keep notebooks of their blending recipes and within those notes are almost certainly blends that, for a variety of reasons, never made it in to production. The Safe Keepings from Alec Bradley is one such cigar, born from Alan Rubin’s blend book.
Bradley Rubin, brand ambassador for Alec Bradley and son of the company’s founder Alan, had this to say via a press release back in May of this year:
“When we felt the time was right, we opened the blend book and started to do a deep dive on the blend recipes inside. Together with the team, we selected the first blend we wanted to roll out. Alec Bradley Safe Keepings honors the blend legacy of the Alec Bradley cigar brand while giving us the opportunity to move forward with resources we never would have been able to access before. Alec and I are extremely proud of what Safe Keepings represents, and that’s a nod to the past and a glance into the future of the brand.”
THE CIGAR – SAFE KEEPINGS by ALEC BRADLEY
Size: 5 x 52 (robusto)
Wrapper: Nicaragua habano
Binder: Nicaragua habano
Filler: Nicaraguan Jalapa, Condega, & Estelí Criollo 98
Price: $12.29 (while these samples were submitted for review, you can head over to Famous Smoke Shop and save $20 off $100 using promo code TNCC20)
The Safe Keepings features a medium-shade brown wrapper that showcases aromas of toasted bread and a faint sweetness when sniffing the foot of the cigar directly. There are no surface oils present and just the right amount of give is detected when gently squeezing the body. I’m really digging the cigar’s band design. From the green/gold/black color scheme to the artwork, it all works very well visually. The cold draw reveals a faint chocolate milk sensation with a light woodsiness present also.
Upon ignition, crisp white pepper pours through the retrohale clear as can be. Oak backed up by a barely-decipherable coffee note are the first impressions via the draw. The combination of pepper spice and oak are playing well enough together here early on. A smooth mineral component begins to arise alongside the white pepper around the 1” mark.
The dry oak note is now standing alone as the draw’s one flavor of note, as the minimal coffee that was present earlier has now vanished. The retro’s pepper is still hanging in there although its potency has diminished considerably. If this all sounds slightly boring… well, it is. Construction so far has been very good with a smooth draw and a strong ash.
As the razor-sharp ash approaches the band of the Safe Keepings, a cream cheese icing flavor shows up both through the draw and the nose. Imagine a cream cheese icing with a two-to-one ratio of butter to cream cheese and that’s what I’m experiencing. This icing note momentarily overshadows the oak, mineral, and everything else in its path. Which is a good thing.
Remember that highly enjoyable cream cheese icing flavor I just mentioned in the last sentence? It has suddenly disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared out of thin air. I hope it comes back soon because we are now right back to Boringville, USA. The white pepper is barely hanging in there and the woodsy oak just isn’t enough to maintain any interest. Stellar construction continues to be the star of the show as the Safe Keepings is smoking flawlessly… but when was the last time you recommended a dull cigar to someone just because it burned nicely?
THE NUB
TNCC FINAL SCORE = 84
Viewers of the Tuesday Night Cigar Club podcast have heard us say the same thing, over and over again, for almost a decade now – “There is nothing worse than a boring cigar. Except nazis, nazis are worse obviously.” Sadly, the Alec Bradley Safe Keepings is a boring cigar albeit it’s a boring cigar with a brief, momentary ray of sunshine in the form of the cake icing note that came and went in a matter of minutes. Simply put, there are many better options out there to spend your hard-earned money on (especially at this price point).
Total Smoking Duration = 70 minutes
