Cigar Review: La Hoja Reserva Limitada 1962

• Vitola: Gran Toro
• 6.5 x 54 ring gauge
• MSRP $16
• Provided by La Hoja

Background

I looked at the La Hoja Clasica and Maduro cigars over the last couple weeks. Today I’ll be wrapping up my look at their new cigar lines by looking at the Reserva Limitada 1962, which they consider to be the “crown jewel” of the 1962 line.

William Flores, President of La Hoja Cigars, remarked of the new blend, “we like to say that at La Hoja Cigars, ‘Tobacco is the Conversation.’ Reserva Limitada 1962 is our boldest statement yet of our relentless commitment to quality, tradition, and innovation.”

The Reserva Limitada 1962 is offered in just a single size and will be limited each year to the amounts of the exact tobaccos they need for the blend. For the filler they use Piloto Cubano from the D.R., as well as some Nicaraguan leaf. This is then covered with a Dominican binder and an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper that is aged for six years.

As with the other cigars in this review series, I smoked only the one that was provided and it was provided by the company.

Prelight

The Reserva Limitada has essentially the same band in another color scheme, this time blue and an orangey gold. It’s also finished with a blue ribbon as a foot band. The wrapper leaf was a dark tan color with lots of darker mottling on it, not really unusual for Ecuadorian Sumatra leaf, really. It was very oily and smelled of cedar and graham cracker. The foot had even stronger notes of graham, along with lesser cedar and earth notes.

After I clipped the head, I test it and found the draw to be excellent. The flavors were a mix of graham and cedar with a lingering peppery burn on the lips.

Flavor

As I lit up, I noted (again) the presence of graham cracker flavor…sweet and slightly bready. I usually pick this up from Dominican leaf and with some filler and the binder from the D.R., I guess that isn’t too surprising. I did get a good amount of cedar, as well, and some earth. The pepper spice still stayed on the lips, but was also good and hot on the nose. As I burned through the first third, I really enjoyed the interplay and mix of the attributes of Dominican and Nicaraguan leaf in the blend. I picked up just a bit of a metallic twang from the Sumatran wrapper, but the rest of the blend was so good, it didn’t put me off as it sometimes does.

I headed into the second third, noting that the graham sweetness had tailed off a bit and more earthiness Nicaraguan goodness was coming through. There was also an increase in the amount of cedar and pepper on the palate, while the pepper on the retrohale had abated a bit. The first third was medium in body, but in the second, the body ramped up to the low end of the full range pretty quickly.

The last third stayed in that low-full bodied range and displayed more earth, some red pepper, and a hint of sweetness that helped balance it out.

Construction

As with the other La Hoja sticks, construction on this one was as good as you can get.

Value

The other cigars in the 1962 line run about $11 a stick (for the sizes I reviewed). This one, being a larger vitola and a limited run has a substantially higher price, closer to what you would expect to pay for an EP Carrillo LE. I think that comparison actually works well as this was a very good experience.

Conclusions

The Reserva Limitada is a great addition to the La Hoja 1962 line, completely different from the other blends and deserving of its status as a limited edition. If they are able to control the consistency of the blend (not necessarily a given due to limited quantities of leaf from year to year) this will be an excellent cigar to get reacquainted with whenever it is released. It thoroughly deserves its spot at the top of the line-up.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10