Ever since getting to talk to Hamlet Paredes at IPCPR this summer I have been anticipating these hitting the market. I pre-ordered from an online vendor and received them last week. After letting them settle for a bit I had one Saturday night after my son’s wedding.

If you are unfamiliar with Hamlet Paredes, he was the master roller at the Partagas factory in Havana until he defected to the US 11 months ago and went to work for Rocky Patel in Florida. His custom cigars always had a unique flavor and were much sought after.

When I got to talk to Hamlet at the convention he was very excited to put out a cigar for the American market.

CI describes the cigar this way: Tabaquero comes draped in a San Andres wrapper concealing binders from Brazil and Mexico, and Nicaraguan long-filler. Medium-bodied, and containing Cuban-esque richness, flavors abound including spice, cocoa, coffee, pepper, earth, and subtle cream.

These are very dark wrappered cigars with good smooth construction. Firm, but not too, to the touch, with nice aromas of well aged tobacco from the wrapper and the foot. Cut very cleanly with a Palio, and the pre-light draw was easy without being loose and had light hints of various flavors including tobacco and spice.

First draw was a bit strong, but mellowed quickly to a nice blend of tobacco, spices with undertones of cocoa and earth. The ash was nice and firm.

At about the half-way point a distinctive undertone of pepper starts to build.

The excellent construction of this cigar allowed for the smoke to stay cool and pleasant, which allowed a creaminess to develop.

Clean finish with no harshness.

Cigar burned razor sharp with no touch-ups required at all.

More smoke that you might expect from a corona. It smoked very much like a Habano and was easy to smoke down to the nub.

I cannot in good faith compare these to Hamlet’s creation with Cuban tobacco; however, given the wide variety of leaves he had to choose from, he did an excellent job with the blend, binder and wrapper to create a most enjoyable cigar. I am definitely looking forward to smoking more of these in different sizes to see how well the filler competes with the wrapper, as a corona’s flavor is generally dominated by the wrapper.

Construction – 5

Burn – 5

Quality of flavors – 5

Overall impression – 5

5/5 Stellar cigar from one of the best in the business. Joe Bob says check it out.