Vitola: Toro
Size: 6″ x 52 ring gauge
Price $17.90 msrp
IPCPR show sample given to me by Andrew at Small Batch
Background
To celebrate the introduction of the Liga Privida line ten years ago Drew Estate announced that they would be releasing an anniversary cigar to commemorate the occasion. The news of it broke shortly before the trade show and DE handed out “official pre-release samples” (it says so on the band) at the show. Andrew from SmallBatchCigar.com was kind enough to give me one of them to review. The cigar is comprised of fillers from Nicaragua and Honduras, a Mexican San Andres binder, with a criollo wrapper grown specifically for Drew Estate in Connecticut. The come packed in 10 count boxes with an initial release of 10,000 cigars. This was my first experience with this cigar.
Prelight
This example doesn’t look exactly like the ones shown in the press release. The first one of the differences I noticed is the band. This one is reminiscent of the regular Liga lines, not the black double band from the pictures. It is also missing the pigtail cap. I can see bands not being ready but to have a different cap is a little strange to me. The wrapper is a medium dark brown with some golden hints to it. The wrapper does exhibit some tooth but very little oils. When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give without any soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got the aroma of leather and peanuts with raisins from the partially closed foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw I got some leather, cinnamon and sweetness out of it with a good draw.
Flavor
Lighting up this cigar it starts off with spice on the tongue and retrohale and flavors of leather, earth, cinnamon and wood with a sweet finish. It start off at medium full strength. Toward the end of this third I also got some chocolate flavors out of it. As I moved into the second third the spice mellowed out a bit. I got more cocoa flavors with earth, leather and wood with a sweet and salty finish. It did stay in the medium full range through the second third. Once I got into the final third I tasted flavors of leather, earth, wood, coffee and cocoa with the same sweet and salty finish. It spice did ramp back up as well, however the cigar stayed at medium full strength.
Construction
The draw on this example was just about perfect and the burn was only slightly wavy in the final third.
Value
With the price being ~$6 more than the regular release it isn’t that bad.
Conclusions
You could definitely tell that this was a Liga Privada, but there was something different about it. I can’t exactly put my finger on what that is but it is definitely there. I’m looking forward to trying this when it hits the shelves.
