Wrapper: Dominican Corojo
Binder: Dominican Corojo
Filler: Brazilian, Dominican, Peruvian
Size: 6 x 47 “Corona Gorda”
Body: Medium
Price: $9.00

This cigar is named for the president, and founder, of La Aurora: Don Fernando León. The blend was a secret except to friends and family as they were the only ones privileged with the chance to smoke them. Guillermo León decided to pay homage to his father by releasing the blend to the public after his father’s death.

The corona size was Don Fernando’s favorite size. And as a result, it is called Founder’s Choice.

The PR machine claims that this is a maintenance free stick. We shall see.

The stick comes in five sizes: Belicoso 6.25 x 52, Corona (Founder’s Choice) 5.5 x 42, Corona Gorda 6 x 47, Gran Toro 6 x 58, and Robusto 5 x 50.

Fernando León Family Reserve received several 90-ratings. Cigar Aficionado said: “Delicious combinations of raisin, hearty leather and spice flavor are buttressed by rich cocoa and mineral notes. A complex and balanced cigar.”

CA also said this about on their web site whose topic was the Top 25 for 2013:
“The León Family of the Dominican Republic has been making cigars by hand since 1903. To celebrate 110 years in the cigar business, La Aurora owner Guillermo León created a blend honoring his father, Fernando Léon Asensio, who died in 2009 after running the company for many years. The Fernando León Family Reserve is made with a blend of Peruvian, Dominican and Brazilian filler tobaccos (a formula familiar to La Aurora smokers) wrapped with Corojo-seed tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic. The result is a balanced, complex smoke with notes of raisin, spice and cocoa, and just a touch of minerals.”

CA put the Belicoso size into their Top 25 of 2013 at number 15 with a rating of 94.

The cigar band is simple and elegant. A white background with red and gold trim. The La Aurora lion head logo stares out at you from the top of the band. Written in gold, on the white background, it says: “Fernando Leon Signature.” Below that, it says: “Family Reserve.”

Construction is excellent with invisible seams, a few veins here and there, what appears to be a triple cap, and a light brown oily color. The wrapper feels somewhat sandy.

I clip the cap and find aromas of sweetness, dark cocoa, buttery pie crust, and a very small orange citrus element.
Time to light up.

The cigar starts out with a wallop of red pepper. The draw is excellent. And along comes a nice fruity sweetness. It is the orange citrus. Mixed with a sweet cedar component.

The body starts off with a medium body strength.

This is a smoker. Meaning I can’t see the laptop screen through the smoke while the cigar is in my mouth.

The cigar falls out of my mouth as I sneeze sending what small amount of ash into the carpet. I was about to write that the char line is a bit wavy but no touch ups required.

A leather flavor appears in the first inch. It even has that aroma of a new car’s leather seats. The orange zest is only slightly ahead of the sweetness, sweet cedar, and cocoa. And the other fruitiness is raisin. Just like they said.

A bit of creaminess joins the fray. This is a lot of flavor so early in the stick. I just got these cigars and decided to start writing about them. If they made the cut, then we are good to go; if it wasn’t ready, I’d save the piece for another day. But clearly, we are good to go. I can’t wait to see how they strut their stuff in a month or two.

The tobacco blend has a savory quality. Sort of meat and potatoes, no veggies. The spiciness has shelved itself into the back of the line.

This stick burns extremely slow. It has taken over 20 minutes to get to the 1” mark. It is in no hurry. I had some pause about buying this size. 6 x 47 might burn fast. But leave it to the Leóns to put my worries aside.

The first touch up is required as I near the second third. Only a minor one so it will be pretty for the photos; otherwise, I’d leave it alone.

As the second third begins, here are the flavors in descending order: Cedar, sweetness, cocoa, creaminess, orange zest, raisins, and spice.

It is at this point, the flavor profile explodes and becomes a flavor bomb. I now see why Papa León chose this blend to keep in house. Magnificent blend. This doesn’t happen that often; a family blend given to the public. Thank you Guillermo.

The strength remains at medium. Wally Guse, have I found a cigar for you! Buy the singles, go to cigarauctioneer.com and pay as little as $3.25 a stick instead of the retail $7.75 by the box.

The cocoa makes a big surge pushing the other flavors aside. Along with it comes the creaminess. Egg cream time in NYC and I grab a Diet Coke. The sparkling water from the Coke and the cocoa and cream take me back a long way. Google egg cream and make your own. You will thank your Uncle Katman.

The cigar is on cruise control. Flavors are being belted out of the park like they were hit by Mark McGwire. Hands down, this is the best La Aurora I have ever smoked and worth every bit of the retail $9.00 price tag.

At the halfway point, no changes have occurred. This stick needs no changes.

And then I get a liqueur tasting flavor. Sort of a Gran Marnier flavor that accentuates the orange zest element. How nice.
The last third begins and it is knocking my socks off. The complexity is so rewarding. The balance is better than perfect. And there is a very long finish with a chewiness to it.

I am very pleased with myself that I won a box on auction. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of them before but with a little research I determined I had to have them. The nice thing about cigarauctioneer.com, instead of Cbid, is that the bidders aren’t well informed. And anything new is ignored. Boxes also don’t sell well unless they are a big brand high premium. The good stuff goes right by everyone. So I bid with 3 days to go and no one bid against me.

The char line has behaved itself since that first touch up. The construction acts like a champ.

Time to remove the cigar band. Not a hitch. I smoked one last night and I had to tear the thing off so I had some hesitation this morning. But no worries.

I begin to get some nicotine kick. My vision blurs. I grab an Atkins shake to get something into my stomach.

The cigar reaches a very smooth point in the burn. Here are the flavors: Cocoa, creaminess, orange zest, Gran Marnier, sweetness, cedar, and raisins.

The Miami Cigar & Co. web site lists this as a medium bodied cigar but I tend to disagree and call it a medium/full.

A lot of what I review are cigars from manufacturers, online stores, gifts from followers and lastly…cigars I took out my wallet for. So I am pleased as punch knowing I have 18 more of these waiting for me.

As the cigar finishes out, the flavors are as bold as a pubescent boy asking a girl out on a first date. The strength does hit medium/full and I slow down. I don’t do well with nicotine especially since I’ve never smoked a single cigarette in my life.
I highly recommend this cigar. I never give a cigar a numbered rating because it is such an objective measure and I don’t claim to be an expert. But I wholeheartedly agree that this stick deserves a 94.

And now for something completely different:
The Eddie Munster Chronicles 1983:

It was the day before the first shoot. I hadn’t written a script yet because Butch kept putting off getting together with me. Thank goodness because I got a hair up my ass and whipped it out in two minutes. No changes needed.

The first shoot was an exterior. There is a line in the song that says, “I got up and left school.” So we got the infamous George Barris to loan us John Travolta’s souped up Trans Am. George insisted that he provide the driver. The scene was two shots. It was Butch running down the steps of the high school in cap and gown. And the second was the Trans Am burning rubber taking off from the school.

Our second shoot for the Eddie Munster video was a complete success. We fooled the cops on Sunset Blvd and shot right in front of Hollywood High School. But that was only 2 scenes. My shooting script had 31 more scenes to go.

I scoped locations. In San Pedro, CA, there is a permanently docked boat that has a couple restaurants, and a chapel on top.
The chapel would be perfect and I made financial arrangements with the chaplain.

I gathered my crew, and my extras, and the band and we showed up at the Princess Louise around 6pm.

I was immediately met by the owner of the boat who said the chaplain had no authority to allow us to shoot. FUCK! (%#^$#%&*(*&!!!!

$2000 please…as the owner stood next to his brand new Rolls Royce.

WHAT???!!!!

I drove home like a maniac while the crew was moving their gear to the chapel. I went into my safe and grabbed the dough. The owner, and his Rolls Royce, were waiting for me. I handed the money over and he left but not before I gave him the finger. Only a few of my crew knew what had happened. I couldn’t afford another disaster like the mortuary catastrophe. (Another story)

I had rented 5 outlandishly decorated caskets from Cassandra the Casket Queen in Hollywood. We were forced to hold them over our heads as we transported them upstairs to the chapel. We actually had to wind our way through a crowded restaurant to do this. Forks fell in unison.

The camera crew set up in the chapel while our make-up artist did her thing with the band members….Eddie in white; while the Monsters were in green make up. All good looking boys. In fact, one of them was Butch’s brother, Mike.

I go over the script with Marvin Rush, my cinematographer (Who went on to be one of the most used cinematographers in L.A. He did some Star Trek movies.)

One of his crew members voices an opinion that it can’t be done in one night. Marvin immediately tells him to shut up. He tells the guy that Phil is the director and they will do whatever it takes to get it done.

The extras are ready. I picked regular folks. No models or pretty people.

I quickly spend a few minutes with all concerned to tell them what I need from them.
And then I yell “Action.”

We had begun to shoot our first scene of the night. Now mind you, the song was just barely 2 minutes long and I had written 33 scenes to shoot. That meant an edit every 3.6 seconds. The same way the Bourne movies are edited. Blink and miss a scene.
The first shot was of the 50 extras dancing into the chapel while the music played. I purposely picked a huge array of types; fat women, fat men, a rainbow coalition of ethnicities, young and old, and they were all thrilled to be there and have their 15 minutes, or shall I say 7.2 seconds? The longest scene of the video.

One of my friends, Ben, brought his friend, Jasper. Both were very well dressed in three piece suits. So I put them up front for two reasons….they were dressed to the nines, and could move their fat asses like no one else in the crowd.

One of the shots had the camera on them as they sang the chorus. All they had to was lip sync the title of the song. It turned out that it was the only shot of the night that required more than two takes. Jasper, could not for the life of him, remember the words, “Whatever Happened to Eddie?” So his mouth moved in total non-unison with the song. It was driving me nuts and taking too much time.

It was the only time I acted like a prima donna during the whole project. I screamed at Jasper that is he stupid or what? It was like talking to Forrest Gump. He just couldn’t do it. He promised he would on the threat of being sent away. I had 49 other extras lip syncing perfectly and there was Jasper in the second row fucking it all up.

“Action!”

I didn’t want to look at the play back. I had to move on….But I heard Marvin, my camera man, laughing so I knew that Jasper had failed miserably. That was the only scene where we needed extras so, upon completion of that part of the video, I sent them home.

And then we moved on to the parts with Butch and the band.

And it got really hairy at this point….things happened…the night turned into morning and everyone was running on cocaine…..tempers were out of control….
To be continued…..

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, Fernando León Family Reserve Cigars by La Aurora Cigar Review, la aurora cigars, miami cigar & co.