Short Smokes: Undercrown and Liga Privada #9 4x32s

• 4” x 32 ring gauge 
• $25 – $30
• Purchased at Burns Tobacconist

Background

At last summer’s IPCPR trade show, Drew Estate announced the imminent availability of a whole host of new lines of 4×32 cigar tins. While they had produced ACID and Tabak Especial versions of this cigar size before, they were adding Undercrown Maduro and Shade, to be shipping almost immediately after the show, as well as Liga Privada #9 and T-52, as well as Herrera Esteli and Norteño, to be shipping in November.

Announced ship dates have gotten to be almost a joke in the last couple years, though. At Burns, we ordered all these, but the Undercrown Maduros didn’t show up until late September/early October. Undercrown Shade tins showed up a month or more later, if I remember correctly. The #9 and T-52 tins finally shipped in early February 2018. I still haven’t seen or heard anything about Herrera Esteli, Norteño, or KFC tins. Sadly these means that the really cool tabletop and water tower displays that DE made up and sent out are either sitting around empty or hidden away in a closet somewhere waiting for produce to show up and actually fill the spaces.

I decided it would be fun to look at a couple of the releases that did make the stores already, though. I wish I had been able to get to these earlier as it was an especially cold December and January around here and these cigars would have been great for short smokes in very cold weather. Maybe by next winter they will be shipping in sufficient quantities to become a regular item in your winter collection.

Undercrown Maduro

The Undercrown Maduro 4×32 looked very close to a “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” version of a regular Undercrown Belicoso…although the wrapper on this small smoke seemed a little stretched and puckered in places. Overall, it seemed to be filled evenly and well, except near the cap, where practically every sample I smoked (about 3 or 4 previous to this one) was soft and felt very underfilled. Could be that these are handmade and it’s hard to hand-make a tiny belicoso…which seems to argue that they should just be making parejos instead.

The aroma from the wrapper was rich and earthy, with just a touch of cocoa powder. A major advantage of such a small ring gauge is the instantaneous nature of light-up. It didn’t take much patience and careful toasting…put the stick in your mouth, hold the torch up to the tip, puff on it a few times and let it run. Once it was going, the UC Maduro was really close to the regular size lines, except perhaps just a touch stronger. The smoke was heavy and oily and copious amounts were produced, just like its larger brothers. I got notes of dark chocolate, dark roast coffee and a little black pepper on the palate. The retrohale was chocolatey, earthy, and peppery, though the heat was a quick, intense hit and then it drifted away quickly.

The UC Maduro 4×32 lasted about 25 minutes for me. I’m not the slowest smoker in the world, but I’m far from hot-boxing my sticks. I would say it gave a good-enough approximation of the full Undercrown blend. I liked these from the first one I smoked and I haven’t wavered over the course of several more. This would be a great cold-weather short cigar.

Liga Privada #9

The Liga Privada #9 4×32 had an almost milk chocolate brown color to the wrapper and an aroma of medium-roast coffee and earth. It did seem a little lighter than most full-size #9s I’ve seen lately. After clipping, I got mostly earth and a little spice on a very good draw.

The LP#9 lit up almost as easily as the Undercrown 4×32. It was definitely full-bodied with a mild chocolate sweetness overlaying tons of coffee. The finish was woody and peppery.

The diminutive LP #9 continued on full-bodied with an increasing amount of pepper, dark chocolate and coffee flavors. This one also lasted about 25 minutes, give or take. I found it to be a very good distillation of the #9 experience in a format that makes it much easier to enjoy in a short amount of time. Another winner for cold weather smokes!