Tonight I’ll be reviewing the largest cigar in the humidors. This is the La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero. I don’t know too much about this cigar, I picked it up at a smoke shop on a whim, as I’ve never tried LFD cigars. This is a large vitola, I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it’s about churchill length with maybe a 60 right gauge. If I recall correctly it was about 7-8 bucks.
It’s a nice looking cigar. It’s dark with a nice oily sheen. It’s certainly not smooth… it’s lumpy and veiny, with no shortage of bumps and valleys. The sticker looks great in gold, black, and red. It’s classy looking.
I hate to say that this stick doesn’t smell like much of anything to me all through the length of the cigar, and the prelit draw tastes like light sweet tobacco. I can’t pick up notes of anything else.
The initial few draws are quite tasty, and a light tangy.. bittersweet taste coats my lips. It produces plumes of thick white smoke that is warm and smooth.
From the look of this stick I expected to get blasted with strong spicy madness, but what I’m getting is much milder. It’s sweet and spicy, not light at all, but not as excessive as I expected. It may be worth noting that cigars almost never end up being what I expect them to be. It’s pretty great actually. The draw is perfect. The ash starts out looking snow white, fluffy, and weak.. That’s what I’d expect with this larger ring gauge.
Oddly, I’m starting to notice an increasing bit of numbness on my lips, tongue, and cheeks. I like the sweet, peppery, spicy taste but the feeling is moving from being interesting to being distracting. I’ve experienced some light canoeing in the first half hour that self corrected… <rant>which is cool, since my torch lighter is being a pain in the balls… and why wouldn’t it. Most all cigar accessories.. cutters, hygrometers, lighters… etc seem to be wonky shit, no matter the price. </rant>.
So far, it’s been extremely slow burning and consistent. It is full and strong. Nearing the end of the first third the ash has held, as weak looking as it is, and it’s definitely not straight. It’s not pretty, but that’s ok. It tastes great and it’s burning well.
Entering the second third, the sweet pepper subsides a bit, and so does the numbness in my mouth and the bitterness on my lips. The stick starts to pick up smooth creamy woody tones with the pepper moving back. Exhaling through the nose though… wow. It burns. A lot. My eyes water. That creamy/woody taste doesn’t last long though and it goes back to pepper. Not black or red pepper though, more like a mild green pepper… spicier than a banana pepper, but not as spicy as a jalapeno… and a fitting aftertaste comes back with it.
At about the halfway point, I start to feel the nicotine. It’s not overwhelming, I don’t feel ill or lightheaded, but just a nice euphoric nicbuzz. This is not a newbie cigar, but I don’t find it particularly complex either. It’s dominantly peppery with a pretty strong sweetness, but not too much character change, and it’s quite strong.. I wouldn’t recommend it to people that like mild cigars, even as a change of pace. Only smoke this one if you enjoy medium-full to full strength. It’s not kicking my ass like the La Bomba I reviewed last week, but I ingest an awful lot of nicotine on a daily basis. If you don’t, this will knock you over.
So far it’s needed quite a few minor touch ups. I’ve had to relight the wrapper 4 or 5 times.. and this really does affect the taste. A good portion of the taste of a cigar comes from the wrapper, and when the filler recedes into the wrapper, all of that flavor gets lost which is as unfortunate as it is annoying. I’ve been noticing this an awful lot lately, which makes me think it’s caused by the RH in my humidor. I’ve historically kept my humi at 70%, but about a month ago dropped it down to 65%. These are also relatively new sticks that have been in the humi < 30 days. Because of this, I don’t want to blame the burn issues on the cigars themselves. I’ve also recently switched from using wooden matches to torch and light, to a 3 flame torch lighter… so take that into consideration.
Entering the final third, once in a while I’m picking up notes of cinnamon, but the dominant flavor is clearly pepper. This stick has been burning for a long time, and honestly, after 2.5 hours I’m getting a little bored. The taste has remained great, with the smoke consistently smooth and plentiful. Overall it’s a great value for a long lasting, strong, spicy cigar. It’s not pushing any limits, but it’s not holding back either. The last third is definitely full strength, and though I could comfortably take this down to the nub, I’m not going to. I’ve had enough, and it’s not offering anything to keep my interest. It’s lived a good life and I’d recommend it for a special occasion. I think if I pick up any more of these, I’ll do it in a smaller vitola.
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