The Good Stuff: La Herencia is an exclusive brand brought to you by cigar.com/cigarsinternational blended by the one and only A.J. Fernandez. A.J. is a master, and has been on a roll kicking out some of the last few years best cigars. The Dos Capas is a limited edition run and sports the same mold as the standard La Herencia Cubana which is composed from an all Nicaraguan mashup of tobacco grown in the Estelí, Condega, and Jalapa regions. The Cigar is then wrapped in a beautiful Ecuadorian Sumatra (same as the Cubana), only with a twist (pun intended). A.J. decided to have a little bit of fun and barber pole the wrapper with the Ecuadorian Sumatra and a deep, dark, Pennsylvania Broadleaf. These cigars run for $6.50 a cigar.

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra/Pennsylvania Broadleaf  –  Binder/Filler: Nicaraguan  –   Body: Medium

Prelight: The La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas is a thick, rustic looking barber-pole style cigar. The wrapper is composed of two wrappers, a dark, brown oily maduro, and a medium brown, and orange oily wrapper twisted parallel around the body of thick cigar. There is only one larger vein running in both the maduro and lighter shade wrapper at around the same area. Despite being a barber pole cigar, its really durable and you can handle it pretty heavily without risking the delicate construction. The La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas is finished off with a huge, rounded, maduro double cap. The band is similar to most of the other bands in the La Herencia line. Red, brown, gold and white with a huge crest carrying the name “La Herencia Cubana” on the front, and a smoke red lion in the back.

The wrapper of the Dos Capas gives off a great, strong sweet tobacco scent while the foot gives off more of a timid chocolate and earthy aroma. The La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas cut clean and easy using my double bladed Colibri Cutter. The cold draw kicked out some nice chocolate and tobacco flavors along with a really neat earthy grain that I wasn’t really expecting.

First Smoke: The La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas starts out with just a ton of bittersweet chocolate, and sweet tobacco flavor. There is a bit underlying spice and pepper, but not a whole lot. This cigar tastes like it was dipped in melted Hershey bar. The Aroma from the stationary smoke compliments the chocolate, and tobaccos tastes perfectly. The draw is perfect, again filling my mouth with just enough thick, white smoke after only two puffs. The burnline is razor sharp and dead even leaving behind a trail of solid white and light grey ash. It will be interesting to see how well the burnline does as I get further into the cigar due to the crazy wrapper this cigar has. The ash held on for about an inch and a half before toppling into my ashtray.

Halfway There: The chocolate is still by far the dominant flavor. There is a bit more spice starting to creep its way in as well as a little cedar, and even honey. This is a sweet cigar through and through. The retrohale even produces an excellent chocolate priming with a ton of cedar mixed in there. The burnline is still perfect despite me thinking that the burn would start to go haywire at some point. The cigar is so smooth, and mild that I am feeling absolutely no nicotine even after the second third.

Finish: Even though this La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas is giving out some neat favors, it’s starting to lose my attention into the final third. It’s got some awesome flavors, chocolate, cedar, and spice, but nothing that really stands out nor are there any considerable changeups from the second third into the last. It’s a smooth, mild cigar. There is no nicotine kick, and absolutely no harshness into the final inch. The cigar took about an hour and a half to take down, and burned flawlessly with no touch ups or relights required.

Overview: This La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas is a great cigar. Well balanced, smooth, and sweet. It was just a little too smooth for my liking. This would be an excellent cigar for someone who is just starting out, or even a perfect morning smoke. I’d just stay away from it if you want a more robust, and complex experience. It’s definitely worth having around, but I wouldn’t run out and buy a box or anything.

Pairing: Since we are due for some snow in out chilly El Paso desert, I decided to pair this La Herencia Cubana Dos Capas with a New Belgium Snow Day. Snow day is an experimental Winter Warmer style ale brewed at the New Belgium brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. A year or so ago, the brew masters at New Belgium became snowed into the brewery. They did exactly what any good brew master would do, brew some beer! They created an experiment. Basically they hopped the hell out of a winter warmer ale and created an interesting Pale Ale style winter brew. That’s right. Interesting enough the beer comes in at 6.2% ABV and carries a very hoppy taste similar to most pale ales, but threw in some awesome spice, cinnamon, malt, and orange to give it this special winter twang. It made for a great pairing, but the entire time I smoked the cigar I kept telling myself “Man, this thing would go perfect with some black coffee”. Try it for yourself.

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I can only assume BMF stands for Big Mutha F******R, but I could be totally wrong. Maybe it stands for Baby Mouth Feet? Bob’s Math Fundraiser? Bad Mommy Foundation?! Whatever it is, I trust one of my better-educated readers might be able to fill in the blanks for me. (Blanks Must be Filled?)

The Good Stuff: I was contacted by a twitter buddy of mine Ryan (@revjava) who is in cahoots with Gary Griffith over at Delaware Cigars. Emilio Cigars (@EmilioCigar) is Gary’s brain-child and is a new cigar company starting to make a name for itself. The AF1 is the first blend released by Emilio Cigars. For the AF1, Gary teamed up with the infamous AJ Fernandez and spent over 2 years perfecting his ideal blend. Due to the extreme grasp on quality, the AF1 is limited in production and may often see restrictions on supply. These cigars run for about $7.50 a cigar. Not bad for the size.  The one thing that caught my attention right away was AJ and Gary’s decision to use a San Andreas born Mexican tobacco for the wrapper. I can probably count the number of manufacturers using this Mexican wrapper on one hand, and all of them are just ridiculously tasty. So, is this just another run of the mill cigar company that will put out a single cigar then raise white flags? Or, is Emilio Cigars destined for greatness? Let’s find out.

Size: 6 x 58  –  Wrapper: San Andreas Mexican  –  Binder/Filler: Nicaraguan

Prelight: It’s impossible to overlook just how ridiculously dark the wrapper on the Emilio’s AF1 is. It’s such a dark brown that is almost black. The wrapper is incredibly toothy, and shows really no larger veins throughout the entire thick body of this big ass cigar. The top of the AF1 is capped out with a nice, round double cap that blends in so flawlessly with the cigar that it was hard to even see where the body ends and where the cap begins. The cigar feels a lot lighter than I expected with its large stature, but is extremely tough, and shows no signs of soft spots when squeezed. I’m really impressed with the pre-light construction on this cigar. It almost looks fake, like a plastic prop used in a movie.

The wrapper gives off this massive, pungent, barnyard and leather aroma and surprisingly the foot has a nice spice and oats type aroma. This should be an interesting mixture once lit up. The cap cut a lot easier than I thought it was going to, based on the thickness, and toughness of the wrapper. The cold draw shockingly didn’t give off a lot of flavor. All I was really able to pull from it was the oaty, almost bread tasting flavor that matched the aroma I got from the foot of the cigar, but even that was very faint and hard to pull out.

First Smoke: After being robbed from what I thought was going to be a glorious cold draw, the AF1 delivers big with a just blast of flavor right off the bat. The Mexican wrapper is just delicious. Emilio’s AF1 starts off very smooth with no pepper, a really nice chocolate and fruit flavor paired with a bit of honey and some spice on the after taste. The draw on this thing is perfect kicking out a mouth full of thick smoke after only the first or second draw. This cigar really doesn’t emit a lot of stationary smoke, but you can let it rest quite a while without it going out on ya.  The stationary smoke really smells like a melted chocolate bar or dare I say smores? The burnline is dead even from the start leaving behind a tightly compacted white, and light grey ash that held on for an inch and a half before falling into my ashtray.

Halfway There: What a flavor bomb this AF1 is! The wrapper is really taking off as well as the cigar. Introducing the second third is this huge ramp up in more chocolate/coffee flavors paired with some nice dark fruit, and just a dash of spice. The retrohale leaves you with a nice woodsy, chocolate priming. Very smooth. The burnline is still rocking even, and the body of this cigar isn’t really effecting me at all yet. It’s more medium than anything at this point. Really creamy and smooth.

Finish: The flavors began to mellow out a bit, but not in a bad way. The leading contender is still this really nice chocolate flavor with coffee and spice backing it up. The body of the cigar encountered a nice little kick, but not enough to put it over the edge. It still isn’t a really powerful cigar, but instead maintains a great balance of flavor and strength. Despite the huge size of this cigar it still only took me about an hour and forty five minutes to take down. It didn’t smoke fast, I just really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the fact that there wasn’t any harshness build up into the home stretch of the AF1. Finished nice and smooth.

Overview: What can I say? AJ Fernandez nailed it, as he often does. This is another perfect example of using the Mexican wrapper correctly. EO Brands hit the nail on the head when they used it on the Murcielago, Tatuaje  hit home a run with the Face, Ashton owned it with the the La Aroma de Cuba, and now Emilio’s Cigars and AJ Fernandez kicked out another Mexican wrapped winner. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think going into these cigars. I didn’t know much about the cigar, nor the blend. So many new cigar manufacturers are popping up and I figured this was just another one of them. Needless to say I am VERY impressed. All their hard work paid off and I am VERY interested in what the future holds for Emilio. The price is spot on for this cigar as it’s definitely something I would smoke again, and very box worthy.

Pairing: Just look at the wrapper on this cigar. Who wouldn’t want to pair this thing with a nice, deep, thick stout? That’s exactly what I did. Reaching way back in my fridge I stumbled across a favorite beer of mine. Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout. Samuel Smith’s oatmeal stout comes from the UK and is brewed at the Samuel Smith Old Brewery Tadcaster. The oatmeal stout is a very heft, malty chocolate/berry mixture with a smooth, creamy, coffee finish. At a modest 5% ABV this beer is the perfect pairing and blends seamlessly with almost identical flavors from the Emilio AF1. The only other pairings that really stand out in my mind with this cigar would be some warm creamed coffee, a hefty strong porter, or maybe some Dr. Pepper.

Along with the AF1, Gary sent over the new blend due out this month, the Grimalkin. I try not to do back to back reviews often, but would this be something you guys would like to see reviewed next week? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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