Wrapper: Ecuadorian (Sancti Spíritus)

Binder: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Size: 5.625 x 46

Body: Medium/Full

Price: $8.40

The L’Atelier line is the umbrella blend of several other blends that showed up within the last year. This blend is the newest. I also think that the original L’Atelier is the best of the lot…but I have not smoked this new version, so I should know shortly if that still stands.

The brand was created by Pete Johnson and José “Pepin” Garcia and is manufactured at the El Rey de los Habanos factory in the Little Havana section of Miami, Florida.

Sancti Spíritus is a municipality and capital city of the province of Sancti Spíritus in central Cuba. Sancti Spíritus, Latin for “Holy Spirit,” is one of the best preserved cities in the Caribbean from the time of the sugar trade…. where Don Pepin’s home town of Cabaiguán is situated. The leaf is also called the “Lost seed of Cuba”.

This new blend has already won itself a 94 from Cigar Aficionado.

The wrapper is an Ecuadorian hybrid of Criollo with Pelo de Oro. It is supposed to be more mold resistant. The Oliva Family is responsible for cultivating this new leaf.

The rest of the blend is the same as the original L’Atelier.

Construction is gorgeous with that dark, oily wrapper reflecting day light. Almost no veins. Tight seams. A slight bit of toothiness. And a pig tail that looks more like my dog’s nipple. And I must mention that the double band is very classy looking. The stick is solid oak with some soft spots at just the right places….on the cigar.

So I sniff this baby and detect dark Oolong tea. Very earthy. And a shit load of cocoa at the foot.

So I V cut it and light up.

Wow. Here comes the spice! It’s D-Day for red pepper. And the Germans give up immediately. My dad was Army infantry in WWII. A corporal. He was at D-Day +2. He went on to win the Bronze Star three times and the Purple Heart for taking a machine gun bullet to the chest; just missing his heart and then a ticket home after a year overseas. Thank you Nazis everywhere for not always being a good shot. I have a Dad story at the end of this.

The char line is dead nuts.

The spiciness is charging the Light Brigade. But I can taste some cocoa and sweetness. The power or the pepper is too strong to discern much else.

I love this size. Easily my favorite. Smaller ring gauges are always more flavor intense. My eyes are really watering and my Kleenex box is near at hand. I left the Lubriderm upstairs and I’m lazy.

The ash is not very hearty as it falls off at the half inch mark. I think I upset it.

That note of strong tea in the aroma department begins to break through the spice factor. It reminds me of my favorite DE stick: Cold Infusion Tea. A refreshing stick.

The body is already climbing from medium to hope you have a belt on to keep your pants up.

I take my time. If I guess correctly, the halfway point will explode with flavor and the spiciness will move to the back. The pepper, while strong, does not obliterate the cocoa, tea, sweetness and now some cedar. I don’t know where the earthiness comes from? The wrapper or the Nic blend. I’ve only smoked a few real Cubans in my lifetime. Wouldn’t it be nice if a Nic stick with an exotic wrapper could approximate one?

At an inch in, creaminess pops up. It looks around and goes back into its hole. It is a known scientific fact that creaminess is afraid of pepper. Forgive me. I get acid flashbacks now and again and they happen when I least expect it. So sorry.

Smoke is not a big element of this cigar. There is another mystery to me. Why some cigars spew it and others let it dribble. Someone leave a comment and explain it to me please.

I leave the first third and the pepper has really mellowed. Or my palate is burned.

And now the smoke spews. How about that?

The char line continues to be dead nuts. The draw is perfect.

The cocoa is ramping up along with the tea but the creaminess seems to have disappeared completely. Or my palate is burned. I repeat myself under stress…I repeat myself under stress…I repeat my…

I suppose the blender determines the marketing point on whether a cigar is medium or full, but this baby is full baby, eight to the bar.

I approach the halfway point. And the flavors begin to express themselves with some intensity.

There is a bit of espresso…very dark coffee. It begins to become hard to differentiate between the espresso and the tea. The tea component has moved to the back.

And then the creaminess comes to the surface. The pepper is there but not so strong.

The earthiness is somewhat unusual. It is a flavor now, not just an impression. Must be the wrapper. As far as I know, I have never smoked a stick with this wrapper. So I am caught off guard.

This is a grown up’s cigar. A cigar for very experienced smokers. Newbies would burst into flames. Or disappear through spontaneous combustion like the drummer in Spinal Tap.

The creaminess is the main flavor. Cocoa follows behind it.

At the last third, the cigar begins to mellow quite a bit. It moves back to medium bodied.

The stick doesn’t get very complex. It dotes on the aforementioned flavors. I’m sure 6 months of aging will change the character quite a bit.

All in all, an excellent cigar. Johnson has kept the price point the same as the original. But he has only one size for this cigar where the original has three.

I would definitely consider buying more of this cigar. And then let them age properly.

And now for something completely different:

My father told me some stories of WWII. And as he got older, he clammed up. Things he saw and did weighed heavy on him. He refused to watch “Saving Private Ryan.” In fact, he yelled at me to change the channel when I put it on the tube.

He was somewhere in France guarding one side of a river. The Germans had a bunker on the other side. They were there for days and began to get boring. Whatever toilet facilities the Germans had in that bunker must have failed. You get the idea.

So at night, they would sneak out and do their thing.

My dad and his comrades found a way to break the boredom. They’d wait until the soldier had his pants around his ankles and they’d open fire. Not to hit him, just to disturb him. The Germans would swear at them in English across the river and the G.I.’s laughed their heads off.

And then the word came to take the bunker. My dad and comrades were horrified at this. In a strange way, they had become friendly in a sadistic sort of way. And they didn’t want to shoot them.

They were ordered to open fire with rifles and machine guns and mortars. Because it was dark, the G.I.’s didn’t aim so well. All of the mortar rounds missed.

Their lieutenant was not pleased. The next day, a tank was brought in and in one round, the bunker was destroyed. The morale of my dad and his fellow soldiers was low for a couple days until the war distracted their sadness.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS