A Perfect Whiskey and Cigar Pairing For Black Business Month
There is a particular kind of afternoon in the summer where the heat asks you to slow down rather than speed up. I found one of those afternoons in the Cocktail Garden, a stack of video edits in front of me and the Allure 1865 within reach. What could have been a chore turned into something dare I say fun — and that is exactly what a good pairing is supposed to do.
The 1865 comes out of Nicaragua top to bottom: Nicaraguan wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and a filler blend of Habano and Corojo tobaccos, a 52 x 6 in the hand. It smokes medium — enough presence to hold your attention, light enough to sit with through a working afternoon. And this month it shares the table with New Dawn's 6-Year New York Cask Strength Bourbon, our additive-free, grain-to-glass expression built on apricots, chocolate, and croissants. Two makers, one table. August is National Black Business Month, and this pairing is a Black-owned cigar meeting a Black-owned whiskey — two hands claiming space in a tradition African Americans helped build, without asking anyone's permission to be here.
The first third: Gathering the Ingredients
The first draw is butter and cracked peppercorns — and it told me immediately this was a job for the 6-year bourbon, not the wheated. Right behind the butter came a wave of Dr Pepper spice and brown sugar, that dark, layered baking-spice sweetness that rewards a richer pour. Cask strength matters here: nothing diluted, nothing added, so the bourbon's own cherry and cocoa meet the cigar's brown sugar note on equal footing rather than washing it out.
The second third: Making Magic
This is where the 1865 turns generous. It goes creamy — cupcakes with a thick, rich buttercream frosting. If the first third was the spice rack, the second is the mixing bowl. The bourbon's croissant-and-baked-goods profile slides right alongside it. This is a like-meets-like pairing on purpose: buttery cigar, buttery whiskey, each one making the other rounder. As an ecologist by training, I think about terroir the way a winemaker does — Nicaraguan climate and soil in the leaf, New York grain and climate in the glass — two expressions of place agreeing across a distance.
The final third and finish: A Bold Finish
The 1865 gets hot and spicy at the close, Sichuan peppercorn tingle over deep, rich tobacco. That heat is the signal to reach for a cocktail. Build an Espresso Old Fashioned and the finish mellows into dulce de leche and carajillo territory — smoked, refined, dessert-like. It tempers the pepper without smothering the tobacco, which is precisely what you want on a hot afternoon whether you're working or finally, mercifully, not.
Overall: an excellent summer smoke. Smooth and light enough to relax into the heat, with a flavor journey that reads like individual baking ingredients — butter, brown sugar, buttercream, spice — coming together at the end into one rich dessert. Sipped with purpose, it earns the hour.
The Pour and The Cocktail
New Dawn 6-Year NY Cask Strength Bourbon
Espresso Old Fashioned:
2 oz New Dawn 6-Year Bourbon · ½ oz Kafe Anme Haitian Coffee and Cocoa Bitters liqueur · ¼ oz rich simple syrup · 2 dashes Mexican Chocolate Bitters. Stir over ice, express, and sip slow.
Join the table. The best pairings, cocktail builds, and first looks at new releases go to our email list before anywhere else — including sales! Sign up at newdawndistilling.com and pull up a chair.
Must be 21+. Please enjoy responsibly.
