Room101 The Big Payback Maduro Papi Chulo

Matt Booth created The Big Payback as a thank-you to the supporters who helped build Room101. The Maduro version brings a darker character to that idea, and the compact El Gran Papi Chulo Rothschild puts it into a 4.5 × 50 format. Made in Honduras, it wears a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper over the Honduran binder and filler listed in Room101’s current specifications. Expect a rich, earthy profile with toasty notes and dark chocolate, offering plenty of flavor despite the cigar’s shorter dimensions. The emphasis is on substantial, darker flavors rather than a lighter experience simply because the cigar is compact. Pair it with Deschutes Black Butte Porter. The beer’s chocolate, coffee, creamy texture, and roasted finish should complement the cigar’s darker notes while providing a malty contrast to its earthiness. This pairing works through shared flavors: chocolate connects the two, while the porter’s coffee character adds another dimension to the combination.

Honduras has been a tobacco growing and cigar manufacturing area for hundreds of years, but it was the Communist revolution in Cuba that really put Honduras on the map. In the 1960s, many Cuban cigar makers fled their homeland and arrived in Honduras to re-establish their way of life. The immigrants took advantage of the climate, soil, and geography, which were well-suited to tobacco growing, and began producing high quality cigars. The center of the Honduran cigar industry is the city of Danli and the nearby Jamastran Valley. The majority of the world’s pure Corojo tobacco is grown here, now that Cuba has stopped production of this iconic, spicy, and rich variety in favor of Corojo hybrids. Other important areas of Honduran cigar production include the Talanga Valley, Copan, and Trojes.