Vitola: Perlas (Corona Gorda)- 5.625” x 46 ring gauge
- $8.50
- Purchased from Small Batch Cigar
Background
2020 has played havoc with shipping schedules of many cigar companies. Noticing this, I was sure to run out of new review material sometime this year. I thought about how to deal with the issue and decided that I would start looking at some of the cigars I missed over the last few years, especially if I could get sampler packs and try out several, presenting them in a short format, perhaps paired with a favorite beverage. With that in mind, I am happy to present the next few weeks as “HVC Cigars Month.” I will be featuring short takes on 5 different HVC blends from Small Batch’s sampler pack. If I like any of them well enough, I may revisit them in the future with a full review.
So far my look at a few HVC blends that I hadn’t tried previously has yielded an absolutely sterling 500th Anniversary, along with two “good, but not great” blends in Hot Cake and San Isidro. The fourth cigar from my sampler is the Serie A, a Nicaraguan puro using Corojo 99 for the wrapper leaf, like the others in the catalog, made in the TABSA factory which is where all Aganorsa Leaf blends are made. It is named after the fact that it uses entirely Grade A tobaccos in its creation.
As with the others in this series, I bought a sampler from Small Batch Cigar that included all these blends. Anything I think is particularly outstanding will get a full review at a later date. So far, I’m planning on revisiting the 500th Anniversary. Let’s see if it will be joined by the Serie A.
Notes
The Serie A is the second of the 5 blends from HVC in this series (and about the second overall) that I’ve seen with a band that doesn’t look distinctly Cuban. This band is a simple black frame around gold, white and red-orange artwork. It had very little embossing and very simple typefaces. The paper was a matte finish, otherwise I’m afraid this would have looked like a bundle stick. The wrapper was a medium brown with a little molting and a little oiliness. It smelled of clean hay and cedar, with just a touch of earthiness. The foot of the cigar was wet, sweet earth with a touch of chocolate.
Once cut, the Serie A had a very nice cold draw that had flavors of buttered popcorn, cedar, hay, and hint of chocolate. I paired this cigar with some Very Old Barton Bottled-in-Bond, a favorite “bottom shelf” Bourbon that far outperforms its $13.50 price point.
I fired up the Serie A and got that same popcorn note that I picked up on prelight, along with plenty of cedar and earth and a slight sweetness. There was a little pepper spice on the palate and a lot more on the retrohale. I found myself getting a little lost in this cigar. It was a really nice accompaniment for a Sunday afternoon with the temp and leaves starting to fall…and, because of that, I forgot to take a lot more notes.
But I did enjoy this cigar quite a bit, so I think it deserves a revisit as a full revisit at some future time. Good, medium body, slightly sweet, slightly spicy…and the Bourbon was a nice pairing with it.
