La Gloria Cubana Serie N | Cigar Review

By Cigar Reviews by the Katman on March 24, 2014

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatran Capa Oscuro
Binder: Nicaraguan Proprietary
Filler: Nicaraguan Proprietary
Size: 6.5 x 58 “Glorioso”
Body: Full
Price: $7.08 MSRP

I reviewed the Serie R which I believe used to be the B & M version of the Serie N. The problem with the blend was that it was archaically old school. I had it for a month or more and it still needed more time. I am afraid the same will happen here. But a friend of the blog suggested I review it, so here goes.

Team La Gloria Cubana: Benji Menendez, Yuri Guillen, Rick Rodriguez and Michael Giannini developed the Serie N for the branch of General Cigar Dominicanas.

The cigars are manufactured at the famed El Credito Factory in the DR.

The wrapper is almost coal black. And a little lumpy in places. The dark color hides the veins and exposed seams. It appears to be a triple cap but no way of confirming it. A stamped “N” made of lighter colored leaf is sloppily glued to the front of the cigar. And the rollers are not that precise in its location from stick to stick. In fact, one of the “N”’s falls off while I take photos.

The standard LGC cigar band with the red and gold highlights is a nice contrast to the Caddyshack stick. The wrapper feels very sandy.

I clip the cap and find aromas of charcoal, wood; spice, nuts, fresh apricot, and sweetness at the shaft.
Time to light up.

The first two I smoked were terribly plugged. One was a total loss from the beginning. The other reacted well to my cigar awl.

There is a nice flavor of meatiness, raisins, and sweetness. Almost syrupy. There is another fruity element that escapes me at the moment. Hickory takes up a small part of the profile. Almost like putting tree bark in your mouth.

The char line is terrible even after one correction. I really don’t want to burn away half the cigar with touch ups.

It’s ridiculous that a $7 stick should have this much construction issues. Although, in most online stores, the cigar can be had for around $5. If it doesn’t start behaving, it won’t make “The Katman’s List of 67 Excellent Cigars in the $5.00-$6.00 Range.”

An inch in, there is a molasses taste. And a hint of chocolate. I bought a 5 pack a month ago and methinks I am only touching the outer Stratocaster of the flavor potential. And this folks is why I don’t purchase LGC product. I have a small budget, like my penis, and three months is the absolute maximum I can wait on a cigar. And LGC needs at least twice that. These guys are really stuck in the 20th Century. Time to move on fellas and follow the lead of the New Breed Tattooed Ones and come out with some blends that are awesome 2-3 weeks in the humidor. Stop living on your laurels. For they are withering my friends.
The char line is behaving which is more than I can say for myself.

I approach the end of the first third and the raisins and molasses components are very strong. I sense some creaminess wants to break free from its shackles but it is too early in its sentence to do that.

I found the missing “N” from the second cigar in the ashtray so I placed it so it would look like a mysterious shadow.

The second third begins and some caramel joins the small crowd. It begins to climb and really helps out the entire flavor profile by accenting their flavors.

The change is shocking. Spice finally makes a decent entrance. Flavors are exuberant. The damn cigar is fooling around with becoming a flavor bomb.

At the halfway point, I stop leaning on the cigar so hard. It’s not bad. It has a pleasant flavor profile although more of the dark and foreboding character.

The strength has been medium to this point where it now becomes medium/full.

Here are the flavors, in order: Sweetness, caramel, molasses, nuts, cocoa, raisins, coconut (Yeah, you heard me), spice, wood, and leather.

The “N” is about to magically disappear.

I close in on the last third. The cigar isn’t half bad but unless something heroic happens in the last third, it won’t make my list of great cigars in the $5-$6 range.

Then, with two inches to go, the cigar becomes an official flavor bomb. The sweetness is doing the heavy lifting. The luscious caramel and cocoa are wonderful. The last couple inches reach the full body stage with a bit of nicotine kick.

I suppose another month or two and the cigar will have reached its full potential.

The char line required several touch ups during the smoke down but never got out of control.

My advice is to wait at least a month before lighting up your first one. I smoked two around the 2-3 mark and they were tasteless.

That 4-5 week process did the trick although I did have to wait to the end before really enjoying it.

I do recommend this cigar even though I’m not partial to old school blends. But there is a reason for that….I’m on a budget.

I just can’t afford to buy large amounts of good ol’ school blends and wait forever. If I were bucks up, then it’s another story. When I worked for a living, I spent a fortune every month on cigars and had cigars with a year or more humidor time.

But that was also before the New Breed of blenders showed up so I had no choice. I’ve been retired now for almost 6 years. Yikes.

I will include this cigar in my list of good sticks. With the caveat of it needing a lot of humidor time.

A friend on a cigar forum, Lynn Davies, turned me on to an online store I’ve never frequented that has the whole Curivari line. It is called Tobacco Locker. I didn’t check prices though. Just a heads up for Curivari freaks like me.

And now for something completely different:

Into the Way Back Machine…

When you are young, you think you are made of Teflon. You do all the drugs of the specific era you happen to grow up in.
For me, it was weed. And hashish. And LSD. And mushrooms and peyote. Hallucinogens were our drugs of choice. At least among my friends.

Coke was rarely seen til the 80’s. And none of us were stupid enough to even try heroin.

No matter what band I played in, we rehearsed stoned. We played out stoned. We got stoned after the gig before we headed out to feed ourselves in self-congratulatory adrenaline.

I never played in a band before I was 50 that wasn’t always stoned. It was around that time, that employers began doing random drug screenings. And being a big shot in construction was not a good place to be and caught being stoned.

Give you an example. Smoke a J and then do a simple problem using the Pythagorean Theorem. See?

When Curved Air went on tour, we had a standing ritual. Stew, the drummer, and I would always run off stage when the violinist did his 15 minutes of tortuous psychedelic meanderings that really jazzed up the audience.

Waiting for us, was our trusted roadies: Beric Wickens and Moray Smith. One held the hash pipe and the other, the lighter.

Stew and I would puff our brains out for a good 10 minutes. And none of this wussy European method of mixing cigarette tobacco with the hash. We were AMERICANS! We smoked our hash straight up.

The Europeans whined like pussies that they got too high smoking it that way so Stew and I, the AMERICANS, would pittle puff in their face and call them wankers of the highest order. I believe the queen of England has a medal for that.

One night, Stewart got extremely stoned. He was stumbling all over the place waiting to go back on after Darryl’s solo.

His drum kit was on a huge riser. Probably a good 3-4 feet tall. And the stage we were on was another 5 feet tall.

The stupid song we played after the solo was the completion of our theme song, “Vivaldi” named after the composer. Darryl loved Vivaldi. And the song was based on his compositions in which he liked to use the circle of fifths…a lot.

For non-musicians, a circle of fifths means this:
Here are the notes in the scale: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Of course there are sharps and flats.

Say we start on the A chord. The next chord to be played is the E chord. The chord after that is the B chord. After that is the F chord and so on until you make your way back to A and takes a total of 8 chords. Then Darryl would take the whole thing up a half step starting with A#. And so on. Now if you got lost, you were royally fucked.

The song ended with this huge drum flourish and Stew, who liked to go nuts (unlike his days in The Police), would raise his arms at the end and Ba Dum!!!

Well, this time, he was so stoned, he lost his balance when he raised his arms and he fell backwards….8 feet to the stage concrete floor.

Luckily for him, that is exactly where the roadies stored his drum cases. So they broke his fall the last four feet.
It ripped all the skin from his forearms. Literally gone.

Darryl looked back to see where Stew was only to see him AWOL.

The roadies ran back to help Stew up. His eyes were like saucers. And he ran back on stage to thunderous applause of 10,000 people.

He finished and ran to the dressing room.

The chick singer insisted on calling an ambulance fearing worse damage than skinless forearms. That sounds a lot like skinless foreskin.

We heard the “Eee-Ooo, Eee-Ooo” of the ambulance approaching. I could never get used to that Nazi Germany type of siren. Years later, they converted to American sounding sirens.

We stayed up all night with Stew in the hospital..that is, except for Darryl, of course.

We kept getting in trouble because we kept sticking the hash pipe in his mouth during the long night. But it turned out that missing skin was the only real damage. Some bruised ribs but we were young and overcame that crap.

The next night, Stew was really sore. He limped around like I do now.

His arms were totally covered in bandages. And for the first time ever, Stew played like Charlie Watts of the Stones. Nice and simple.

One of the things that caused friction in the band was Stewart’s ridiculous soloing. He approached every song as if it were a 6 minute drum solo. Drove the band leader nuts.

Especially, when the violinist and guitarist would go to the front of the stage and trade licks for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, Stew was soloing. No downbeat to be found anywhere.

So, I would play quarter notes so the two boys knew where “1” was. I would play 1-2-3-4. Boring, but essential. The fact that I even knew where 1 occurred was a miracle. But I was a good listener.

And after the concert, there would be screaming. Stewart got fired every week. Sonja would quit in solidarity since he was now her boyfriend, and later, husband.

Every damn week this went on.

So when I heard The Police songs and heard how concise and conservative Stew played, I was absolutely amazed. He finally grew up.
That’s me with the fro on the far right. And Stew in the background.