By Greg Mays

 Don’t you just love cigar names nowadays? The Intemperance Brotherly Kindness has a slight shaggy foot, making it a good-looking cigar and an easy one to light. The understated ring is handy, particularly for the ring-on smokers amongst us. Also featuring an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper, the Intemperance lights sweet, with touches of leather and cream. There is a very faint barnyard flavor, though I found it to be more like damp wood than manure and hay. When engaging with Casamigos again, I was surprised to find it take on a spicier profile, imparted by the wood it’s aged in. It delivers a raw oak bite and less of the toasted barrel; something I had not detected in my first pairing.

The wrapper on the Intemperance became more vanilla-forward as it smoked, and the construction was impeccable. The cap is a little bit over wrapped, helping construction to hold together; regardless of the cut you prefer, a welcome quality for a cigar in this price range.The pairing between Casamigos Añejo and the Intemperance is a tight fit: there is an interplay of apricot, vanilla, spice and wood that is tightly woven from start to finish, and you’ll realize this is an excellent pairing. The Connecticut wrapper is commonly chosen to pair with tequila, and with Intemperance’s blend of Indonesian binder and Nicaraguan and & Dominican filler, the interplay is spot-on.

Greg Mays is the Managing Editor of Simple Cocktails  (simplecocktails.net). You can follow him on Instagram and Snapchat at @simplecocktails.