Illusione Epernay Tuonela La Ferme

By Tony Casas | September 15, 2025

This weekend I am finally getting to review a cigar that’s been on my radar all year. Today we look at the Illusione Epernay Tuonela La Ferme.

The Good Stuff:

The Tuonela is the first ever extension to Illusione’s Epernay line. Created at the Raices Cubanas factory in Danli, Honduras the blend features a Mexican San Adres Capa Fina wrapper over an undisclosed binder and filler, however the description does say it contains a mixture of criollo and Corojo tobaccos. The Tuonela comes in four size: La Ferme (5 1/4 x 48), Le Taureau (5 1/2 x 56), Le Grande (6 x 46) and Le Monde (6 1/4 x 52). Each comes packaged in boxes of 25 ranging between $11.20 and $13.70 per cigar.

• Size: 5 1/4 x 48
• Wrapper: Mexican San Andres
• Binder: Undisclosed
• Filler: Undisclosed
• Body: Medium/Full
• Strength: Medium
• Price: $11.20

Prelight:

Unlike the other cigars in the Epernay line, the Tuonela features a very deep, dark, consistent brown wrapper. The wrapper’s texture is extremely thick and dense with loads of gritty tooth and a good amount of oils coating it. The cigar as a whole is very tightly packed and very heavy. The wrapper is laid evenly over . There are only some very light veins in the wrapper leading up to the cigar’s round, triple-wrapped cap. The cigar is polished off with the new, updated gold and white Epernay band and an additional red white and gold band with the “Tuonela” printed across the front.

The wrapper on the Illusione Epernay Tuonela gives of a very bold amount of cedar and tobacco while the foot of the cigar carries spice, earthiness, and some great woodsy notes. The cap cut clean and easily. The cold draw produces notes of earthiness, tart cherry, and loads of woodsy notes.

First Third:

The Illusione Epernay Tuonela starts off with a soft black pepper punch that fades very quickly allowing the cigar to release a ton of earthy/mossy/grass flavors over deep woodsy flavors, black cherry, leather and musk. This is a very earthy cigar. The draw is flawless despite how tightly packed the cigar is. Each puff kicks out a good amount of thick, white smoke which dissipates quickly while the cigar gives off very little stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burnline is thick, and a little wavy as it leaves behind a trail of tightly compacted white ash which held on for almost an inch before giving way.

Second Third:

The more that I smoke the Illusione Epernay Tuonela, the more the woodsy/cedar notes take charge of the flavor profile. Backed by grassy/earthiness and a great mixture of leather, coffee, black cherry and musk this is a great flavor profile. The retorhale brings out an awesome spice and I find myself doing it pretty often. The burnline is now dead even and razor thin. I close out the second third with only a very minor nicotine kick.

Finish:

The flavor profile in the Illusione Epernay Tuonela is much of the same into the second third and I am not complaining. The woodsy/cedar notes and musk took center staged backed by coffee and black cherry with a light coffee finish. The cigar took about an hour and a half to smoke down to the nub. There was no harshness, no extended heat or sap, and despite started a little wavy it completely corrected itself without the need of any extra attention from my torch all the way through.

Overview:

The Epernay has been a longtime favorite in my humidor and has always had a spot in my regular rotation so its safe to say that I was just a little more excited to hear about the Tuonela extension and wasn’t let down. The cigar profile is great. It’s smooth and isn’t overly complex, but it also didn’t need to be. I feel like the cigar compliments the Epernay line, however has enough changes that it’s easily a completely different profile. It burned flawlessly, price point is very affordable, and will easily be a future box purchase.