Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial

These are great days to be a cigar lover, as the variety of cigars right now are only matched by their quality, especially if you like Nicaraguan cigars. Oliva, Perdomo, Padron and, lately, Don Pepin Garcia have been rolling stellar cigars the past few years. The Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial is a blend from the son of Pepin. 'Son of Pepin' sounds like a horror film, right? But this cigar is dark and forebodes nothing but a great cigar experience..

Being an enthusiast of Nicaraguan cigars, and having had great luck with cigars associated with the Garcia family, my heart skipped a beat when these showed up at one of my local shops, and I bought a pair straight away.

The Reserva Especial sported a dark, oily, Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper, with any veins being as low-profile as the seams on the wrapper leaf. And not only smooth, but giving an earthy aroma to the nose and a peppery spice to the lips. The draw through the cigar was free, but without feeling too loose.

Prominent flavors at the start were earth, cedar, and a nice spice. So far, very reminiscent of an Oliva Serie O maduro (one of my go-to cigars), with a touch more wood in the flavor profile, but very close. Gotta love Nicaraguan fillers. After the first inch, the intensity of the earthiness dialed back a notch.

By the middle of the cigar, the spice seemed to drop back a ways, yielding the stage to the earthy wood flavors. The Kona blend coffee I was drinking in tandem seemed to work well with the cigar, and I noticed some coffee flavors in the mix toward the mid-point of the cigar as well.

A bitter cocoa flavor also flirted with the palate after the mid-point, and the last third carried on with a solid medium-bodied presentation. Soft spice highlighted the earth and wood flavors to the end.

If I were given this cigar blind, I'd have said it was an Oliva at the beginning, but by the middle I would have been doubting the call. At $8 a pop for the toro, these cigars are fairly priced for the quality of the experience. Another hit from Nicaragua!