Marca Fina Panama gigantes

[Don Fernando]

Marca Fina is a bundled budget cigar made by the Panamanian/German cigar manufacturer Darrier & Cleef who also make Colón cigars of which I reviewed the Especiales III recently. The cool part of the Marca Fina is that they make Panamanian, Dominican and Honduran puros so you can smoke them back to back and compare the different flavors of the soil and tobacco from those three countries. That is an experiment I would love to try someday, but as I only had this Panamanian Gigantes, which measures 8½x50, I couldn't experiment with the different origins. The bundles contain 16 cigars and are packed in sackloth and cellophane.



First thing that I notice is the lack of a cigar band around the mocha brown wrapper. I also notice a few long but thin veins. The wrapper is mild oily and quite silky. The construction feels good and I get a good predraw after punching. I taste a mild spice.



I taste a mild spicy coffee flavor and soon after I also taste an earthy flavor. After ¾ inch the coffee disappears and I am stuck with a spicy herbal earth flavor. After an inch and a half the cigar gets less spicy and more earthy. After three inch the cigar gets a little creamy and I can taste a mild nut flavor next to the earth and herbs.



After four inch I can't taste the nut flavor anymore and the smoke lost the creamy texture, all I taste is earth. A few puffs later I taste some nuts again in the aftertaste. After six inch the nut flavor disappears again but I get some herbs with the earth flavor.



The smoke time of this huge cigar is two hours and ten minutes. The draw and burn are good. The smoke tastes cool in the beginning due to the length of the cigar. The light gray ash is firm and compact. This cigar is full flavored and medium to full bodied. I expected a huge flame with the purge, but I was wrong, I got a decent flame but nothing huge, which is a good sign.



Would I buy this cigar again? In a smaller size probably!

Appearance: 6 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 6 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10