The Good Stuff:

Following up last year’s lancero release, this year Warped Cigars released the 2023 Moon Garden Especial. Offered in a single 5 5/8 x 52 format the cigar the blend features a tweaked version of the same tobacco. The larger size allowed Warped founder Kyle Gellis to pack more medio tiempo along with stronger and higher priming versions of the tobacco which results in a much stronger and more full-bodied blend. Produced at Aganorsa’s Agricola Ganadera Nortena S.A. factory in Esteli, Nicaragua The blend features all Aganorsa-grown tobaccos including a Nicaraguan Corojo 99 wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This year’s offering comes in a single 5 5/8 x 52 format which comes packaged in boxed of 20 running $16 per cigar. This is a very limited production release with only 1,000 boxes being produced. I purchased mine over from our friends at Cuenca Cigars who still have them in stock as of this review’s post date.

• Size: 5 5/8 x 52
• Wrapper: Nicaraguan Corojo 99
• Binder: Nicaraguan
• Filler: Nicaraguan including medi tiempo
• Body: Full
• Strength: Full
• Price: $16

Prelight:

The Moon Garden Especial starts with a very rustic wrapper which is inconsistently colored with lighter yellowish-brown areas scattered with darker brown splotches. The wrapper’s texture is very smooth and silky with a whole ton of oils coating it. The wrapper itself feels thick and hard while the cigar itself is packed extremely tightly and is heavy as hell. There are some milder veining in the wrapper leaf leading up through the cigar’s thick body to its round, triple-wrapped Caro. Like most cigars in the Garden series the cigar is finished off with an heavily designed, yet elegant green, red, and yellow band. It also carries a secondary gold and black band dictating the “Especial” modifier.

The wrapper on the Mood Garden Especial gives off mostly honey and grainy aromas while the foot of the cigar has some nice sweet spice over natural tobacco. The cap cut clean and easily under my Xikar XO double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces notes of honey and grain and a whole mess of earthy/grainy flavors.

First Third:

Warped’s Moon Garden Especial starts out with a huge burst of cayenne pepper which really tackled my lips through the first few puffs. After a bit the pepper began to fade allowing the cigar to release bold notes of molasses, pecan, and and oak with lighter notes of cashew and leather over lighter notes of black tea and dark chocolate. This cigar starts off well in the full-bodied arena right off the bat. Despite being packed very tightly the draw is brilliant as it kicks out huge clouds of very thick, gray smoke which dissipated at a normal rate while the cigar releases a decent amount of of stationary smoke while it rests in my ashtray. The burnline is razor thin and very sharp leaving behind a trail of very tightly compacted white ash which held on for a little over a inch before falling into my ashtray with a thud.

Second Third:

An awesome woodsy cologne flavor made its way to the profile into the second half of the Warped Moon Garden Especial. Surrounding that flavor was some great pecan and cedar over lighter notes of vanilla and cashew and faint espresso and dark chocolate. The retrohale really kicks out the spice and a bit of the pepper so I don’t find myself doing it very often. Likely due to the increased amount of Ligero in the blend, the cigar does have the tendency to try and go out on my. Slightly speeding up my smoking speed completely solved that issue. I close out the second third already with a decent little nicotine kick.

Finish:

As I close out the Warped Moon Garden Especial the flavor profile is much of the same. Bold cedar and pecan with a good amount of woodsy cologne creeping in and over over lighter notes of vanilla and cashew. The espresso has dropped out however the dark chocolate has really picked up. After adjusting my smoking speed there were no burn issues. In fact, the small changed allowed my to burn through the entire cigar from start to finish without having to touch up or relight a single time. With such a strong cigar this did result it in a pretty hefty nicotine kick, but I survived.

Overview:

The Warped Moon Garden Especial is a damn good cigar with an incredible flavor profile. Medio Tiempo is such a great tobacco from a flavor standpoint and always helps elevate just about any cigar’s flavor profile, not to mention really speaks to my personal palate. The cigar burned well enough once my speed was adjusted and had no burn issues after that. The price point is in line with what you’d expect to pay for a cigar with the quality tobacco found in the Moon Garden Especial. This is a cigar I’d definitely keep a handful on hand for those times I’m craving a really strong cigar after a big meal. The only minor quip I have is that it’s almost too strong of a cigar for me. Almost.

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The Good Stuff: La Palina is the epitome of boutique cigars. Led by Bill Paley, the reformation of the blend surfaced in 2010 and has been a force ever since. Teaming up with some of the cream of the crop in terms of manufacturers,  one of this year’s releases the “Goldie” is being produced by none other than El Titan de Bronze. You may be familiar with El Titan de Bronze as they have been responsible for bringing you lines such as the 13^th floor, Bonita Smoke Shop 18th anniversary and Time Warp, Nestor Miranda – Casa Miranda, and many, many more. There was one very talented woman in charge of hand rolling each and every cigar in this line. Her name is Maria Sierra. Maria is a master roller and one of the first women ever trained to rolled cigars in Cuba. She actually started her career rolling cigars for “El Laguito” where Cohibas were rolled some time ago. Maria was trained under the watchful eyes of Avalino Lara who actually created the Cuban Cohiba blend, as well as Eduardo Rivera Irazarri who was Fidel Castro’s personal cigar roller.

The Goldie is the second cigar in the “La Palina Collection”, after the 1896 Robusto. I only smoked one of the 1896 a year or so ago and loved it, but haven’t seen them since. The cigar only comes in one size, the “Laguito no. 2” or petit lancero as we know it in the States. The Goldie is also unique as it contains Medio Tiempo leaf, found only on 10% of tobacco plant. Not many cigars contain this leaf, but one that most people would recognize is the infamous Cohiba Behike.  The Goldie comes in Cuban-style packaged boxes of 10. Only 1,000 boxes were released at $150 each ($15 per cigar), each with an imprinted number on the box as well as an inked signed certificate containing the cigar’s details, box number, and Maria’s signature. Mine was box 739/1000.  I got this box over at Bonita Smoke Shop. If you are looking for the Goldie, she may still have a few, if not she always has a good amount of La Palina on hand, not to mention she has some of the best customer services out there.

Size: 6 x38
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
Binder: Ecuadorian
Filler: Dominican & Nicaraguan
Body: Medium/Full
Strength: Medium
Price: $15
Pairing: St. Bernardus Tripel (Belgium) 8.0% ABV

Prelight: The La Palina Goldie Laguito is a damn pretty cigar. In fact, everything that comes out of the El Titan de Bronze factory is spot-on in terms of construction. Needless to say, the Goldie has that extra special touch. The wrapper starts out with a very webby composure of small veins lying in it’s incredibly consistent light, yellowish brown wrapper. The wrapper seems a bit fragile but the Goldie gives very little as I compress it in my hands. There are no soft spot throughout the entire body of the cigar all the way up to it’s pretty little triple cap with an added little tail to finish it off. The construction on these cigars are just perfect. The Goldie is polished off with the beautiful, standard gold, white, and black embossed La Palina logo.

The wrapper of the cigar gives off a nice sweetness mixed with caramel and cinnamon. The foot of the cigar only gives off a small amount of cedar and vanilla scented tobacco aroma. The cap on the La Palina Goldie cut off very clean and easy using my Palio double bladed cutter. I was greeted with a very strong, milky, vanilla, sweet tobacco, and cinnamon cold draw. It reminds me of some sort of ice cream, or horchata. Either way, it’s tasty.

First Smoke: La Palina’s Goldie Laguito welcomed me with some nice, strong, unexpected black pepper. After the first few puffs the pepper began to fade and what I was left with was a crazy mixture of creamy milk, sweet tobacco, cinnamon, honey, and caramel. Yes, it tasted like a cigar made from a candy bar. The draw on this cigar was just fantastic. Really, this was one of the best constructed cigars I have ever smoked. Each tiny little draw pumped out a massive, massive cloud of thick white smoke. It was pretty windy outside when I was doing this review and even then the cloud hung around for quite some time before dissipating. Although the La Palina Goldie Laguito pumped out smoke in each draw, the cigar gave off almost no stationary smoke what so ever. The burnline is just perfectly even leaving behind a very thick, tightly compacted white ash that held on for almost an inch before giving way.

Halfway There: Halfway through the La Palina Goldie Laguito and the flavors are still rocking. The cedar I picked up during the prelight has finally found it’s way through the honey, caramel, sweet, creamy flavors. I am also getting a really neat vanilla taste now too. These aren’t flavors I pick up too often but them blend in so well with this experience. The retrohale is just awesome as well leaving behind a soft cedar, honey, and almost banana flavor in my nasal passage. I am not feeling any nicotine at all as this cigar is still burning perfectly.

Finish: Again, the flavors in the La Palina Goldie Laguito just don’t give up. The overall flavor profile is very creamy, but abundant. The vanilla, caramel, cinnamon, and sweetness is still there but the cedar and sweet tobacco flavors have really started to ramp up. It took me just a little over an hour to take down this petit lancer and I encountered absolutely no harshness, or heat build up the entire time. I smoked this cigar down until my chubby little fingers could hold on no longer.

Overview: Needless to say, I loved this cigar. Let me just start off by applauding the work of El Titan de Bronze as they created probably one of the best constructed cigars I have ever had. That being said, take away the flavors and this one was of the best cigar experiences I have ever had. Now, when you add the flavors back in the mix it takes the Goldie to a whole new level. This thing is a flavor bomb with some very unique sweet, and strong flavors without ever getting too bold. The flavors just mixed with each other so well resulted in a perfect balance and complexity. This cigar is box worthy for sure, even with the higher price tag. I only have 2 gripes about this cigar. Number one, the availability. But that’s more selfishness on my part than anything. I just hope I don’t burn through these too quickly. And two, the smoking time. I tore through this cigar in about an hour, that’s taking my time too. Now I know what you’re thinking, “A $15 cigar that only lasts an hour?” even with that thought I can gladly say that it’s still worth the coin. I’ve liked so many of La Palina’s products and can honestly say, hands down, this is in my opinion the best cigar they have produced to date.

Pairing: As warmer weather is making it’s way to the southeast, I couldn’t let the summer pass me by without pairing another cigar with St. Bernardus’ Tripel. Again, this is the ultimate summer beer. Brewed at Brouwerij St. Bernardus in Belgium, this ale comes in at a whopping 8% ABV. Despite the higher ABV, you really don’t taste much of that alcohol in the beer itself. Instead, you are greeted to a nice banana, malt, sweet wheat, and sugar profile that fits right in with the hot weather. This beer may actually be the reason I picked up that banana flavor on my retrohale. The banana, sugar, and wheat meshed so well with the caramel, honey, and sweetness from the La Palina Goldie Laguito. It’s a match made in heaven.

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