Review: La Rica Tubitos

In my continuing effort to find a good every day cigar at a great price I came across these little sticks. There was not much about them online, but having been very impressed with the La Rica Churchill, I though I would give them a try. At around 2.39 GBP each, and about a 25-30 minute smoke time they seemed a good option.

Appearance 8.0/10

My comments about the other La Rica cigars hold true for this one… The cigar is contained in a well constructed tube, which is nice at this price point. The wrapper is a nice medium brown with only a few veins, but does seem a little fragile. The cap is very nicely constructed which makes cutting very easy, the band is a little cheap looking.

Construction & Draw 7.0/10

The wrapper on these Cigars as mentioned is quite delicate, I have not had any damaged cigars, but you can tell the leaf is quite thin, and if not handled carefully could split, perhaps this is why La Rica ship all their cigars in tubes. The cigar is firmer than the others in the range, but that is due to the small ring gauge.

I have had two of these cigars in the last six months, two of them had a slightly tight but good draw, one of them was plugged, so they loose a point on draw.

Flavour 7.5/10

This cigar has that Nicaraguan spiciness that is usually associated with Nicaraguan cigars, but what I like about this stick (and the La Rica Churchill)  is that it is not too overpowering, and is kept under control. This is not a  particularly complex cigar, but it does contain a nice woodiness, with some hints of chocolate. The ash is silver grey, and the burn is excellent (apart from the plugged cigar).

Value 8.0/10

This is a great cigar for the money, it has a decent flavour, is not too harsh, and is good value.

Summary 7.5/10

Like the other cigars produced by this brand, this is an excellent value stick. Sure its not a Cohiba, or any other Cuban, but you just cant ignore the value for money this cigar offers. I would suggest it is a good value cigar, my only reservation is the one plugged cigar, I hope that this was an exception.

Review: La Rica Robusto

I have previously reviewed the La Rica Churchill, and for the price I was pretty impressed. As readers may know I do like Robusto sized cigars, for me they give all the draw and flavour, but are a shorter smoke, very useful on cold winter evenings.

So here I am reviewing the La Rica Robusto, and hoping that its just a smaller version of the Churchill, as you can imagine the review will be quite similar (I will highlight differences in red text), but as I was to find out not exactly the same.

Appearance 8.5/10

The cigar is contained in a well constructed tube, which is nice at this price point. The wrapper is a lovely medium brown with only a few veins. The cap is very nicely constructed which makes cutting very easy, the band is a little cheap looking.

Construction & Draw 8.0/10

The wrapper on these Cigars is quite delicate, I have not had any damaged cigars, but you can tell the leaf is quite thin, and if not handled carefully could split. perhaps this is why La Rica ship all their cigars in tubes. The cigar is firm but not hard to the touch. The draw on this cigar is excellent, I am sure the large ring gauge helps this, and the burn is even and consistent.

Flavour 7.0/10

This cigar has that Nic spiciness that is usually associated with Nigaraguan cigars, this stick has a bit more kick and bitterness than the Churchill, and is not quite as smooth. As you get further through the cigar you get a nice leathery taste, and some lovely hints of chocolate, however when you get into the last quarter of the cigar it picks up quite a bitter taste, and it does seem to burn very hot (best to stop smoking at this point).

Value 7.0/10

This is a reasonable cigar for the money, its rich with good flavors, but at times the peppery Nic kick gets out of control, and the last quarter of the stick gets close to being to bitter to smoke.

Summary 7.5/10

I did enjoy the fist 3/4 of this cigar, it did unsurprisingly taste very similar to the Churchill, and the burn and draw were superb. However this stick also has a little more kick, and the last 1/4 was not very pleasant to smoke, I may look to try this stick again, as it was cold when I smoked it and I may have drawn to quickly which can make a stick bitter. Until I do try another stick I think 7.5 is a fair score for the price.

Review: La Rica Torpedo Maduro

As you know I am something of a fan of the La Rica Churchill, and the Robusto was not a bad cigar, so I decided to try another sticks in the La Rica range. I have not had many Maduro wrapper cigars, so after a couple of weeks in the humidor I decided to try the Torpedo Maduro.

Normally in my reviews I rate the cigar by a number of criteria, for this review due to my experience with this stick I really cant complete a full review, as you have probably guess, this was not a happy smoking experience.

It started of quite well, this is a thick cigar (52 ring), and it feels good between your fingers, the wrapper is a lovely dark color, but it does have quite large veins, and the cap is a little rough and ready, but overall it looked quite good.

I cut the cap and gently toasted the foot, the cigar gave off a lovely slightly sweet smelling smoke as it toasted.

Initially things started really well, the cigar had a lovely rich flavor, with some really strong tones of blackberry and liquorice, I was really getting into this cigar.

Then things started to go wrong, the burn line was really erratic, and almost impossible to correct, and then worse still there would be little “flare ups” in the wrapper where it suddenly burnt very quickly. This released a strong and bitter taste, and was quite unpleasant, the longer I smoked this cigar the more of these “flare ups” occurred.

Finally it reached the point where all you could taste was the bitter flavor, and I gave up smoking the cigar and let it die, at this point I was only around a 1/5 through the cigar.

Such a shame, this started so well, and then became a really unpleasant smoke, if it had carried on as it started this would have been a really enjoyable stick.

I am hoping that I just got a bad cigar, as I cant believe that La Rica after the Churchill could produce a cigar this poor, however it will be a while before I try this again, so in the mean time buy with care!

Review: La Rica Churchill

I am a big fan of the Churchill size of cigar, its a great way to spend an hour and a half to two hours, the length and ring combine to give you a good draw and the opportunity for the cigars flavour to develop. I tried a Punch Churchill a while ago and really enjoyed it, but at around 17.00 GBP it was not cheap, so I have been looking for a good value Churchill.

Having read a couple of reviews on the internet I decided to give the La Rica Churchill a go, to see if it was anywhere close to the Punch. The local merchant now stock La Rica so I decided to pick one up.

Appearance 8.5/10

The cigar is contained in a well constructed tube, which is nice at this price point. The wrapper is a lovely medium brown with only a few veins. The cap is very nicely constructed which makes cutting very easy, the band is a little cheap looking.

Construction & Draw 7.5/10

The wrapper on these Cigars is quite delicate, you can tell the leaf is quite thin, and if not handled carefully could split (the one I tried was fine), perhaps this is why La Rica ship all their cigars in tubes. Cap construction is good, and I got a clean cut when I removed the cap. The cigar is firm but not hard to the touch, once lit the cigar had a slightly tight draw, but after a few puffs the draw became easier.

Flavour 7.5/10

This cigar has that spiciness that I usually associated with Nicaraguan cigars, but what I like about this stick is that it is not too overpowering, and its kept under control (a failing of some other non Cuban cigars I have tried). As you get further through the cigar you get a nice leathery taste, and some lovely hints of chocolate. The ash is silver grey and holds for about and inch, the burn is excellent, with a neat line.

Lets be clear this is not as rich, and the flavour profile is not a interesting as the Punch Churchill, however the flavours do develop quite nicely as you smoke it.

Value 9.5/10

This is a great cigar for the money, its rich with good flavours and keeps the peppery kick under control, if you were given this cigar you would not believe that it only cost 7.99 GBP.

Summary 8.0/10

You cant go wrong with this cigar, for the price it is truly excellent, its no replacement for the Punch Churchill, as its not as sophisticated a smoke, but you can get two and a half of these cigars for one Punch. I was going to give this cigar a 7.5, but I decided the value on offer deserved an extra half point.

So for me a well as the expensive Punch I will be adding a number of these sticks to my humidor, as a good value excellent smoke when I have an hour and a to half spare, I would recommend it if you want a great value and enjoyable smoke.