La Flor Dominicana salomon

[Don Fernando]

This La Flor Dominicana had been sitting in my humidor for a while and after seeing it make the number 13 on Cigar Aficionado's top 25 of 2009 I could not wait any longer and decided to light this beautiful cigar.



This 7 x 64 salomon is made from vintage Dominican tobacco, grown at the La Cunela farm in 2004 and 2005 and finished with a beautiful oily Nicaraguan Habano wrapper which looks tough due to some nice veins. The construction feels a bit hard but the predraw is just fine. I could taste peppers, black pepper and red pepper. The cigar has a nice barnyard aroma, not too heavy.



I can taste pepper with some wood, but mostly pepper, a lot of pepper, green and black pepper. After almost an inch I get a little bit more wood and just a tiny hint of chocolate. The pepper gets a bit milder at the same time.



A bit further the pepper mellows out and almost disappears towards the 2 inch mark. The wood that I mentioned before is now the dominant flavor with just a little bit of pepper and even later with some chocolate after the pepper disappears.

After a third the chocolate grows a bit in strength but remains the support flavor for the wood. At 2/3rd the chocolate disappears and the cigar gets a bit salty. Towards the end, the salt disappears and the chocolate returns on the background.



The draw is fine and the cigar gives me lots of white, medium thick, smoke. As always with figurado's, I had some problems with the burning at the beginning but the cigar corrects itself. The ash is light colored, firm but frayed. This cigar is full bodied and full flavored. It gave me a huge vitamin N overdose. This sigar is not for the faint hearted.



Would I buy this cigar again? Yes. I can understand why they made Cigar Aficionado's top 25.

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