Vitola: Toro- 6” x 54 ring gauge
- MSRP $6.75
- Samples provided by J.C. Newman
Background
The J.C. Newman Cigar Company has made a practice of reaching back to the past for new releases…witness “Brick House,” a throwback to a long-defunct brand from the company. This year they made a throwback to a Cuban cigar from the 1940s, inspired by Lazaro Lopez, the General Manager of their Nicarguan PENSA factory.
“At our family farm, my grandfather would take fresh tobacco leaves from the curing barns and roll cigars without any molds or presses. In an attempt to give his cigars a traditional shape, he would tie a handful of them together using pieces of the Cuban royal palm tree, known as the yagua. When he was ready to enjoy his personal cigars, he untied the bundle. He loved how every cigar had its own unique shape.”
Yagua is a limited, but regular, production item with just 1,000 boxes of 20 produced in 2020. It uses Nicaraguan fillers and binder, along with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. Because of the process outlined above, the cigars each have their own very unique shape…and the draw ends up being a little inconsistent as a result.
J.C. Newman sent me a box to sample and share with friends. I’ve smoked about 3 before this review sample…and taken note of what several of my friends have said when they have smoked it. This year’s shipment is currently sold out, but keep an eye on Small Batch Cigar’s website if you want to get them when they are available again.
Prelight
I don’t often get a chance to unbox cigars these days, but since these are very unique, I decided to take some extra pics. The bundle of cigars was kept together with cellophane strips, but mostly the entire thing was shaped by the pressure of the royal palm leaf being tightly wrapped around the sticks. The band was a simple red and gold strip…no big deal, but with a cigar this purposely rustic, you really don’t want an overly ornate band. This reminded me a bit of the bands Dunbarton uses on the Mi Querida line.
I selected a Yagua from the box; it was roughly in the shape of a pentagon, with fairly equal sides. I judged that this configuration would give as fair a chance as possible for the draw to be good. The wrapper leaf was rough and rugged, with plenty of veins and a dark chocolate brown color. It had a rich earthiness and slightly under-fermented tobacco astringency. The foot of the cigar had cedar and hay overlaying more earth and a hint of cocoa powder.
I clipped a small slice from the cap using my trusty Xikar Xi cutter and got a very good draw that had flavors of semisweet chocolate, espresso beans, and earth while leaving a peppery tingle on my lips.
Flavor
Even after a month in my humidor, the Yagua sample I selected for this review seemed a little over humidified. It was hard to get fired up and seemed a bit tight from the outset. I got flavors of coffee bean, earth, and gunmetal from it at the beginning, with a little semisweet chocolate and pepper spice as secondary notes. The retrohale had roasted nuts, cocoa powder, and a slight pepper burn. The draw continued to be a bit inconsistent through the first third and I had to apply extra fire a few times to make sure it was still burning.
In the second third the draw opened up enough to provide consistent smoke levels and I got an increasing flavor of chocolate backed up by earth and coffee. The pepper burn was diminished quite a bit on both palate and nose.
The Yagua had a steady final third, with a decent amount of chocolate overlaying earth and coffee, while pepper hung around in the background.
One of my favorite oddly-shaped sticks in the box
Construction
The draw on the Yagua is inconsistent at best, the burn line was fairly straight, though, and the ash held on pretty well.
The one I chose for this review
Value
Good cigar and a bargain price, so decent value.
Conclusions
I have to start off this wrap-up by saying first of all that Yagua is a fun cigar. The presentation, the story, the fact that every stick is a different (wildly so, in most cases) shape. And it’s tasty. It is a good, solid blend especially for the price. It is strong and full-bodied. And it’s amazingly inconsistent in terms of whether you’ll get a decent draw or not. Which has a tremendous impact on the overall experience. On those sticks where the draw was great, the blend was really good…when the draw was too tight, it was even stronger than normal and very dark and earthy. Dry-boxing might be a good idea with these as they tend to ship really wet…also keep a draw-poker handy. But you should try these out…and if you get a chance to open a box–or watch someone else do it–you should. It’s not often that today’s cigar industry has this much history and fun wrapped up in a package.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8/10
