Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet Review
Romeo y Julieta is among the most recognizable brands in the cigar world, and for good reason. The brand is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, a milestone that remarkably few other cigar brands can even come close to. To mark the occasion, Romeo y Julieta introduced a 150th anniversary blend that features tobaccos from the likes of AJ Fernandez, the Turrent family and the Plasencia family. Today, we’ll be reviewing the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet, a 6×52 toro that represents one of the three vitolas in this new line.
I’ll freely admit that I’m very excited to smoke this cigar, as on paper the blend seems to line up quite well with my personal tastes. The cigar is wrapped in a stunning Ecuadorian Sumatra leaf from AJ Fernandez, covering a Turrent-sourced San Andres binder and a filler blend from Plasencia that consists of Dominican, Peruvian and Honduran tobaccos. There’s also a final undisclosed leaf that Romeo y Julieta teases, revealing only that it is aged (albeit for an unspecified length of time). The fact that this cigar includes tobaccos from some of the top names in the industry is more than enough to get me interested, and I have a feeling that I’m in for something of a treat.
Critical Stats
- Vitola: Toro
- Size: 6×52
- Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
- Binder: Mexican San Andres
- Filler: Dominican, Peruvian, Honduran, Undisclosed
- Strength: Medium-full
- Smoking Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
First Third
The very first thing that leaps out about this cigar is the cold draw, which is rich in both milk chocolate and nut notes. If I didn’t know better, I’d half think I was getting ready to eat a candy bar instead of smoke a cigar. There’s also a hint of spice that I feel more than taste, as both my lips and the back of my throat get a little tingly after a few good draws to get the flavor of the unlit cigar. Speaking of the draw, the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet has a slightly tight unlit draw. Not enough to restrict airflow at all, but also a long way from being the most open cigar I’ve ever had.
Upon lighting, the nutty tones of the cigar remain up front, and the spice can still be felt in the back of the throat. The milk chocolate character, however, recedes quite a bit to start, instead being replaced by a rich, woody savoriness. There’s still a pleasant hint of tobacco sweetness, though it’s not as much as I might have expected from the cold draw. The smoke has a creamy quality to it, and a few puffs in the cigar takes on a fairly distinct note of black pepper. We’re off to a very nice start.
Once given a bit more time to develop, the cigar really leans into its pepper flavor accented by a note of cedarwood, losing most of the sweetness I was getting on the cold draw and the early puffs. This isn’t a bad thing at all, as it delivers these flavors quite well, with neither burying the other. Behind these more forward flavors, I’m also getting some slight hints of straw and dry earth. The nuts are still there, by this time getting a bit more defined into something of an almond flavor. The draw and burn are extremely even, and the ash is holding quite firm.
By about halfway through the first third, the black pepper calms down just a bit, and the cigar has turned decidedly more earthy, at times giving hints of chalk minerality. Nuts and cedar remain our constant companions through this smoke, and behind everything else a creamy note seems to act as a bit of a backdrop. Again, everything is well-balanced, with nothing seeming to step out of line with the other flavors to become too assertive.
By the time I’m nearing the end of the first third, some of the tobacco’s sweeter notes have re-emerged, brining an extra layer of flavor to what’s already a very flavorful cigar. It’s interesting to note that this cigar isn’t really giving me much in the line of wild, unexpected flavors, as cedar, nuts, black pepper and earth are far from unusual in tobacco, and I can think of any number of cigars that yield a similar taste. What it is doing an excellent job of is keeping those flavors in a delicate balance where they can complement each other quite nicely. The construction so far has also been immaculate, with the ash still holding completely firm and the cigar burning so evenly that I seriously doubt I’ll have to even touch it up.
Second Third
Getting into the second third, we continue with very similar flavors, but a very interesting coffee note joins in. I say interesting not because coffee notes in a cigar are unusual, but because of how crisp and clear it is, calling to mind a Mexican Chiapas coffee by its rather bright character. The tobacco sweetness has also gotten a touch more prominent, a bit of a callback to how it tasted in the first few puffs after I lit the cigar.
In addition to the coffee, I’m also starting to get a little bit of a bread flavor, which seems to have taken the place of the backdrop of cream that’s been evident to varying degrees since the beginning of the cigar. At this point, the pepper has backed off quite a bit, though it’s still definitely there and can be found quite prominently on a retrohale.
Once again, I have to tip my hat to the construction on the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet. Well into the second half, I’ve had to ash the cigar just once, and I haven’t even considered touching it up because it hasn’t required it at all. The burn line is incredibly crisp, and the draw remains very even.
Later in the second third, the cigar takes a decided turn into sweeter tones, with the milk chocolate I got in the cold draw showing back up and the natural sweetness continuing to increase. There’s also a tiny bit of citrus tone laying underneath all of this, almost like a hint of orange zest. It’s nice to see this level of dynamism, as the flavor profile had been more or less consistent up to now. Keeping with the overarching theme of balance, though, we still have some drier notes to offset the sweeter ones, particularly the cedar, which has remained a constant and if anything has perhaps become a bit more forward.
Final Third
By the time I’m getting to the final third, I feel like this cigar has really come full circle. The pepper and more savory notes, excepting the cedarwood, have faded back and let a sweet, chocolatey flavor take center stage. The bright coffee is still in play, and a little hint of freshly-mown hay is also coming through. This cigar continues to evolve, making it a more interesting smoke than it might have seemed up front.
Going further toward the end of the cigar, the citrus note, now resembling candied orange peel, is getting progressively more prominent. A bit of black pepper also creeps back in, adding some balance to the increasingly sweet smoke. A touch of new leather also comes into play, giving an additional layer of body to the flavor profile.
As I get toward the final puffs, I think it’s also worth mentioning the fact that this has been a fairly slow-burning cigar. Despite its size, it’s taken me about two and a half hours to smoke even thus far. As such, I definitely wouldn’t recommend this for a quick smoking session. Save this cigar for when you have time to savor and enjoy it, as my experience suggests that it won’t lend itself to being smoked quickly.
The last pulls of the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet finish sweet, with strong coffee and citrus notes and a nice bit of milk chocolate. The cream that underpinned much of the first half of the cigar is also back, though again in the background. As predicted, touch-ups were totally unnecessary. Overall, a very enjoyable smoke. I can definitely see why R&J reserved this blend for an anniversary, as it seems a very appropriate way to celebrate the brand’s long history.
Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet Review and Closing Thoughts
Flavor
This cigar is interesting in that it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to flavor. Instead, it just delivers an exceptionally well-balanced, crisp and clear version of some of the most common tasting notes one typically finds in cigars and tobacco in general. Some cigars challenge your palate and present you with all sorts of unusual flavors, but that’s not the approach the 150th Anniversary seems to take. It is, however, a truly excellent smoke from a flavor perspective and one that I think anyone who appreciates truly fine cigars can enjoy.
Construction
As I’ve already noted elsewhere in this review, the cigar burned more or less perfectly with no need for relights, touch-ups or anything else on my part. This is exactly what I would’ve expected from a cigar of this caliber, and I have zero complaints. I probably won’t award an extra point (see value section below to see why this is expected, rather than exceptional, based on the cigar’s price), but the construction definitely deserves to be highlighted as one of the several positive features of this cigar.
Value
So far, I’ve had nothing but good things to say about the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconet, and it has earned every one of them. In the value category, though, we’re going to have to give this cigar its one and only significant criticism: It’s just a bit too expensive for what it is. This cigar retails for about $27, at which point it’s competing with some of the nicer offerings from brands like Fuente, Padron and even some Davidoffs. Though I think it’s a great cigar, I think it would be more fairly priced at about $5 below where it currently is if we’re comparing it to other benchmark cigars in that price range. I acknowledge, of course, that Altadis likely had its reasons for putting a higher price tag on the cigar, but I still think it’s a bit much for what you get. At this price, I’m afraid that I’ll likely only enjoy a small handful of these cigars.
Final Verdict
7.5/10
Sometimes I struggle with the number to assign a cigar, but this one was pretty straightforward. My initial thought before adjusting for value and other factors was 8/10. I am going to deduct one point for value, but I think that the extremely elegant way in which this cigar delivered and blended flavors as I smoked it merits an extra half-point, even without any truly unusual flavors coming through. I really did enjoy smoking it, and I feel like giving it the benefit of the extra half-point adequately reflects just what a pleasure this cigar proved to be.
At the end of the day, I would strongly recommend picking up at least one or two of the Romeo y Julieta 150th Anniversary Balconets to add to your personal humidor. Save these cigars for special occasions when you can sit, relax and really spend some time savoring them, as they’re far from an everyday smoke. That said, I don’t think there are many cigar smokers who would be disappointed to have at least a couple of these in their collections.
A final thought to offer is that this is a huge improvement on the last Romeo y Julieta Anniversario I reviewed. That cigar, which was fairly mediocre across the board, received a 5/10. Romeo y Julieta did itself much more justice for the 150th anniversary, and I can honestly say that this is a massive improvement that celebrates the brand and its history properly. I’ll tip my hat here to the many growers whose tobaccos come together to create something really worthy of a brand that has endured for a century and a half.
