Cigar Review: Warped Flor del Valle Sky Flower

Vitola: Toro
Size: 5.625″ x 48 ring gauge
Price $12.50
Purchased From Maxamar’s Cigars

Background

Today I’ll be taking a look at the new line expansion to the Flor del Valle line, the Sky Flower.  You can check out my review of the original blend here.  The difference between this and the original blend is it adds some medio tempo leaf, which comes from the higher priming than ligero, in other words the freaking top of the plant.  Maybe that is where the name comes from?  This cigar isn’t a limited edition but a limited production based on how often they can get the medio tempo tobacco they want.  These cigar comes packed in boxes of 10.  As with the original blend these are made in the Casa Fernadez factory in Nicaragua.  This was the sixth one of these I smoked.

Prelight

The first thing that stood out to me is the band.  It is the same design of the original blend, but instead of having a white background it has a black background.  I think this makes the gold foil pop more and makes the small writing easier to read.  The wrapper on this cigar is also slightly darker in color than the first blend.  The medium brown wrapper showed a bit of oils and had some veins and lumpiness to it as well.  When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give without any soft spots.  When I put my nose to the wrapper I noted some leather aroma with some barnyard coming from the foot.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got a good draw with some leather flavor.

Flavor

The cigar starts off with a strong sweetness on the tongue and a wasabi like burn on the retrohale.  After a few puffs on the cigar I started to get some leather and wood flavors from the cigar as well.  I did start to get some red pepper spice on the tongue as it progressed too.  Towards the end of this third I also got some hints of graham.  The cigar started off at the upper end of medium strength.  As I moved in the second third the spice did start to tone down but didn’t go completely away.  The flavors were very similar to the first third except I started to get a sweet finish from it.  The strength stayed the same.  When the final third came around the spice did start to come back, but it wasn’t as intense as the first third.  The sweetness also intensified a bit and I started to get notes of cinnamon from it as well.  The cigar crept into a medium-full strength cigar by the end.

Construction

While the draw was very easy throughout it seemed as thought the cigar was a bit underfilled.  It burned pretty quickly too.  The burn line didn’t need any correction.

Value

The cost of $12.50 is a bit high for me for an everyday cigar it would be worth it as once in a while cigar.

Conclusions

I do think that this blend tweak is my favorite in the line, with the Las Brumas size of the original blend being a second.  It definitely has more spice than the original blend, but not so much to overwhelm you.  I do think that most people should be able to enjoy this cigar as it isn’t too strong or too weak.  I do think it would be better earlier in your rotation as it may not be able to cut through a real strong cigar.  One pet peeve, is the packaging might need to be re-thought.  Three of the five cigars I smoked from the box I purchased had cracks in the wrapper from shipment.  They weren’t huge but it is annoying.  Even with that I would recommend trying the cigar if you get a chance.  You can check at our sponsor SmallBatchCigar.com to see when they get some more in.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10