Vitola: Petite Corona- 4.625” x 40 ring gauge
- ~$6.00
- Obtained from local Illusione rep
Background
I’ve probably had this cigar before, but I really can’t specifically remember. And although it’s seen as a bit of a “unicorn” in some places, it really isn’t hard to find. La Grande Classe Rex is a stick that Illusione has made in some quantity for a while, but because it comes simply wrapped in a gold foil bundle and has no band, cellophane, or other identifying marks, it’s not something stores want to keep a lot of stock in…unless people already know about it, I guess. A few weeks ago we had an Illusione event at my local cigar shop (Burns Tobacconist in Chattanooga) and I got one of these as part of a “Buy 3/Get 1”…although I can’t remember if I bought 3 or 5 or whatever…doesn’t matter. I decided to keep this stick aside and offer it up as a Cigar Extra. Maybe if it makes an amazing impression on me I’ll head to Small Batch Cigar and buy a 10-pack and we’ll see this blend return for a full review.
This cigar comes in a single size and consists of Nicaraguan Jalapa filler and binder wrapped in an Ecuadorian Habano leaf. The name of the cigar translates to “The Great Class” with the “Rex” added because that was the name of the person (a friend of Dion’s) who requested an early version of the cigar. Credit to halfwheel for background information on this blend.
Notes
Non-descript…that’s a great word for this cigar. If you didn’t see it come out of the gold foil bundle or have someone tell you what it was, you probably couldn’t guess it. The wrapper was a beautiful peanut butter medium brown color with touches of red under certain lighting conditions. It had a decent amount of oiliness and an aroma of sweet hay and natural tobacco. The foot of the cigar had more hay, along with cedar and earth notes. If your first name isn’t “Dion” and your last name isn’t “Giolito” you probably wouldn’t pick this out in a lineup of similarly sized, unbanded Ecuadorian Habano-wrapped sticks.
Clipped, La Grande Classe Rex had sweet grassy and floral notes, with touches of cedar and cinnamon. When I fired up the cigar is when things got really nice, though. It burst into a full-flavor with molasses, bright red pepper spice, cedar, baking spices, and leather. It was just surprising that so much could be happening at once from such a small cigar with no fanfare and such a welcoming price tag.
I paired this stick up with some Elijah Craig Bourbon, which is always a good idea. It was sweet and smooth, without much in the way of spice or alcohol vapor burn. And it went really nicely with the cigar, mixing the sweeter notes and allowing the baking and pepper spices of the cigar to come through still.
La Grande Classe Rex is really a nice cigar, perfectly sized for warmer or colder weather, but seriously suited for just about any time, any place. I will almost definitely be revisiting this in a longer, more focused manner when I get a chance.
