The team at Cigar Snob is not above being swept up in a Netflix series and Alone is one of those that hits all the buttons. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a reality adventure show where 10 contestants are dropped into the wilderness with a bunch of cameras and 10 items that they can bring along. The series, which originally airs on the History Channel, documents the day-to-day struggles of the contestants as they compete for a prize of $500K. The last person to tap out wins but the contestants have no knowledge of how the others are faring.
Most people watch these series wrapped up in a throw blanket on their couch with a mug of hot cocoa, but not this crew. We sit in the backyard with whiskey and cigars. So when the latest season of Alone showed up on our feed, we had the perfect whiskey to binge watch it with. Redwood Empire is a Sonoma-based distiller and blender of whiskeys that is single-handedly bringing California distilling back into the mainstream. Their core lines are all named after famous trees in the Redwood Forest, the bottle sports the GPS coordinates of the tree so you can visit it, and the company partnered with the non-profit Trees for the Future to plant 1 tree for every bottle sold.
The whiskey delivers a world-class nose of butterscotch, vanilla, citrus, and wood with a smoky grain note in the background. The palate offers a combination of sweet and spicy characteristics with flavors of caramel, cinnamon, and vanilla balanced by dry notes of smoke, oak, and tannins. This whiskey is quite complex and interesting with a long, spicy finish.
THE PAIRING
The Aging Room Rare Collection opens with a flavorful blend of pepper, oak, and salty earth complemented by subtle touches of coffee and cream. Once you introduce the Redwood Empire Lost Monarch after drawing in the smoke, the whiskey’s viscosity is cranked up and so is the sweetness. The oak and smoke momentarily take a backseat but re-emerge on the finish. The cigar also takes on an element of heavy sweet cream as the earth and pepper recede. The pairing is perfectly complementary.
Photography by: Andy Astencio
