Emporium
Cigars & the Smoking Lamp
Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua
Shale House Rating: 9/10
Classification: Keeper — Reserve Rotation
Best Setting: Evening, fire, and nowhere else you particularly need to be
Some cigars are technically excellent and utterly forgettable.
The Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua is not one of them.
This is the sort of cigar that makes more sense when the day’s obligations have been dealt with. The phone can stay inside. The fire has settled down. There’s a good chair available and enough time remaining in the evening that nobody needs to hurry.
That’s where this cigar belongs.
Created by Rafael Nodal in collaboration with A.J. Fernandez, the Quattro Nicaragua is an entirely Nicaraguan cigar built around a Nicaraguan Sumatra wrapper. It has the pedigree—most notably, the Maestro vitola was named Cigar Aficionado’s 2019 Cigar of the Year—but accolades aren’t particularly useful once the match is struck.
The cigar still has to deliver.
This one does.
The Smoke
The first impression is richness rather than aggression. There’s earth, roasted nuts, and espresso, with darker flavors developing as the cigar settles in. Pepper and spice are present, but they don’t dominate the experience. Underneath it all is enough natural sweetness to keep the cigar balanced.
What impressed us most was the composure.
This is a substantial cigar, but it never seemed interested in proving how strong it was. The flavors developed without becoming muddled, and the experience remained remarkably balanced from beginning to end.
It’s the difference between volume and depth.
The Quattro has depth.
Construction was equally convincing. The draw behaved, the burn required little attention, and the cigar allowed us to concentrate on the reason we lit it in the first place rather than constantly maintaining it.
That’s worth something.
What Goes in the Glass?
We’d resist getting clever.
An aged rum is probably our first choice. The sweetness and darker character work naturally with the espresso, earth, and spice of the cigar without competing with it.
A good bourbon works beautifully for the same reason.
And if alcohol isn’t on the program, make dark coffee. An Americano would be entirely at home here.
This isn’t a cigar that needs an elaborate pairing ceremony. Give it something honest and well made, then leave the two of them alone.
Where It Belongs
This isn’t our choice for mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, or wandering around doing chores.
Nor would we hand one indiscriminately to somebody who simply wants “a cigar.”
At Shale House, the Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua belongs in the Reserve.
It’s an evening cigar. A fire cigar. A cigar for conversation with someone who appreciates one—or for no conversation whatsoever.
There are nights when the latter is preferable.
The Shale House Verdict
9/10 — Keeper. Reserve Rotation.
We’ll buy it again.
That’s ultimately the only rating that really matters around here.
The cigar world is full of scores, rankings, limited releases, and breathless declarations about what somebody is supposed to taste. We’re considerably more interested in a simpler question:
When the cigar is nearly finished, do you wish there were another twenty minutes left?
With the Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua, we did.
And that’s how a cigar earns a permanent place at Shale House.
Room101 Big Payback 70s Maduro
Shale House Rating: 8/10
Classification: Keeper — Weapons Company
Crew Served Status: Confirmed
Best Setting: When you’ve got two hours, a substantial chair, and absolutely nothing requiring fine motor skills afterward
There are cigars.
And then there are crew-served tobacco systems.
The Room101 Big Payback 70s Maduro belongs firmly in the latter category.
At seven inches long with a 70-ring gauge, subtlety of physical presence was clearly not included in the design brief. This thing looks less like something you’d select from a humidor and more like something that should be signed out of an armory.
At Shale House, anything over a 60-ring gauge or seven inches in length is automatically assigned to Weapons Company.
The Payback qualified before we even lit it.
The Smoke
Ridiculous dimensions aside, here’s the surprise:
It’s actually a damn good cigar.
Underneath that Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper is a Nicaraguan binder with Honduran and Dominican filler, an uncomplicated combination that delivers exactly what you’d hope from something this substantial: earth, cocoa, dark coffee, and pepper, with enough sweetness from the Broadleaf to keep the whole operation under control.
The Payback doesn’t need to perform gymnastics.
It settles in.
The flavors are broad and satisfying rather than constantly changing, which is exactly right for a cigar that can occupy a significant portion of an afternoon.
This is not a cigar you squeeze between appointments.
This cigar is the appointment.
And despite its absurd diameter, the draw works remarkably well.
What Goes in the Glass?
We tried ours with Diplomático rum, and that’s where we’d start again.
The rum’s sweetness worked extremely well against the darker Broadleaf character—better, in our experience, than Bunnahabhain 12, which brought more competition to the pairing than the cigar needed.
Bourbon should also work.
Dark coffee certainly would.
But if there’s a bottle of good aged rum within reach, stop conducting experiments and pour the rum.
Where It Belongs
Not Reserve.
Not Field.
And certainly not something we’d casually hand to an unsuspecting guest.
The Room101 Big Payback 70s Maduro occupies its own particular corner of the Shale House Emporium:
Weapons Company.
It’s for long porch sessions, fires, expedition planning, solving problems that probably don’t need solving, and occasions when the cigar itself is part of the entertainment.
There is also something refreshingly unserious about it.
The premium cigar world occasionally gets a little precious. The Payback arrives like a Marine carrying an M2 through the front door and asks where you keep the beer.
We appreciate that.
The Shale House Verdict
8/10 — Keeper. Weapons Company.
Would we buy it again?
Yes.
Would we maintain an entire box?
Probably not.
A few in the armory is sufficient.
The Payback isn’t an everyday cigar, nor should it be. Part of its appeal is opening the humidor, seeing one of these enormous bastards lying there, and deciding:
Apparently we’re doing this today.
Some cigars require a cutter and a lighter.
The Room101 Big Payback 70s Maduro feels like it should require a range card and an assistant gunner.
And that’s exactly why it has a place at Shale House.
Room101 Big Payback 70s Maduro. 7 × 70. Weapons Company. No further explanation required.
Baccarat Barber Pole
Shale House Rating: 8/10
Classification: Keeper — Morning Rotation
Best Setting: A quiet morning, good coffee, and nowhere you particularly need to be
There’s breakfast, and there are breakfast cigars.
The Baccarat is that breakfast cigar.
It was a crisp Alaskan autumn morning at Shale House. The kind of morning where the air has enough edge to remind you that winter isn’t particularly far away.
The faithful dog had taken her usual place on the porch. Autumn Bossa was playing quietly in the background, and work was sitting somewhere just beyond the edge of the morning, waiting its turn.
A cappuccino was in hand.
And the Baccarat Barber Pole was lit.
Visually, it’s an attractive cigar. The alternating dark and light wrappers give it the classic barber-pole appearance without making it look like it is trying too hard. The simple red, gold, and yellow Baccarat band suits it. Nothing particularly extravagant. Nothing needs to be.
That theme continues once it is lit.
The Baccarat isn’t a cigar that demands your attention. It accompanies whatever else you happen to be doing.
The smoke is mellow and easy. The wrapper held together nicely, the burn stayed consistent, and there was none of the harshness or bite that can ruin a morning cigar.
No bite. Just steady.
Coffee & Company
The creamy character of the smoke worked particularly well alongside the cappuccino. Neither was competing with the other. The coffee gave the cigar a little more depth, while the Baccarat remained mild enough that it never overwhelmed the morning.
There weren’t dramatic transitions to chase or a long catalog of tasting notes to decipher.
It was simply steady.
Some cigars are occasions unto themselves. They call for a comfortable chair, a good pour, and enough uninterrupted time to pay attention to what they’re doing.
The Baccarat Barber Pole isn’t one of those cigars.
That’s not criticism.
It’s precisely why I like it.
The Shale House Verdict
This is the cigar for a quiet morning on the porch. Coffee beside you. Dog nearby. Music playing. Maybe a notebook within reach.
It asks very little and gives you an uncomplicated hour in return.
At Shale House, there’s a place for cigars like that.
Would we buy it again?
Yes.
Would we maintain an entire box?
No.
Five in the humidor is about right.
Because sometimes you don’t need the cigar to be the event.
Sometimes you just need a good cigar.
Baccarat Barber Pole. 8/10. Keeper — Morning Rotation.
Smoking Lamp: Lit.
What’s in the Cellar & Humidor
A current list of the bottles and cigars on hand, with recorded humidor placements and the cellar’s classification framework.