Humidor Archeology: La Flor Dominicana Habano Corona

Vitola: Corona Gorda
Size: 5.625 x 48 ring gauge
Price $8.99
Purchased at Maxamar’s in 2009

Background

When I was trying to think about what to review this week I was having a difficult time since there aren’t any new cigars in my humidor and the new blends released at IPCPR aren’t in my local shop yet.  So I decided to crack open the aging humidor to see what I could find.  In looking around I found a couple of these cigars and I remembered how good they were, so I decided to pick one up and review it here.  This cigar was one of the “experimental blends” from LFD that they did in 2009.  I remember hearing that this cigar had the same wrapper as the Salomon and I was very excited to try it, especially since it was less than half the price of the Salomon.  So I bought a box and have been slowing smoking them through the years.  From what I can find they are a Dominican puro.  They were a limited run and came in 20 count boxes.  I didn’t count exactly how many I had left but I’ve gone through most of the box at this time.

Prelight

The wrapper on this cigar was a nice reddish brown in color with some medium veins.  In spite of the age it had a good amount of oils (I’m going to guess that the cello helped with that) to the wrapper.  If I remember correctly this was one of the first cigars I saw with the then new LFD band.  The cigar wrapper had the aroma leather and earth with hay, curry and hints of barnyard coming from the foot.  The cigar had a slight amount of give with no soft spots.  After clipping and taking a cold draw on it I got a hints of coffee, leather and a hint of bitterness with a good draw.

Flavor

The cigar started off with a good amount of red pepper spice on the tongue and retrohale.  After a few puffs the flavors of coffee, leather and cream started to come though.  Towards the end of this third I started to note some cinnamon and sugar flavors as well.  The cigar starts firmly off in the medium-full range.  The spice did start to die down by the end of the first third.  As I moved into the second third the red pepper spice on the tongue and retrohale started to come back, but not as strong as the first third.  Not much change in the other flavors.  The cigar built into the bottom end of full by the end of this third.  Once I got into the final third there were lots of flavors of leather, cinnamon and earth.  The spice ramped up to even stronger than the first third and I started to get a good amount of nicotine hit as the cigar finished solidly at full strength.

Construction

The draw on this cigar was just about perfect.  Which hasn’t been the case with quite a few of the other cigars from the box I purchased.  These “problem” cigars had extremely tight draws and no amount of dry boxing or using my MTX bleeder tool would help.  I don’t know if it the age or just the sample but this one had a great draw.  I have talked to others who have had this cigar and no one has had the draw issues I have had, so I must have some of the aberrations.  The burn line was pretty straight and needed no correction.

Conclusions

I can say I still really enjoy this cigar.  The age mellowed the flavors and spice just a hint and took the edge off a bit.  Even after all this time this cigar still had a lot of punch to it, which coming from Litto that doesn’t surprise me.  I would recommend picking one or two up if you are a fan of LFD if you can find some.