La Aurora Preferidos Emerald Tubos (Ecuador) review

Cigar: La Aurora Preferidos Emerald Tubos
Size: Perfecto 5" x 54
Wrapper: Ecuador Sumatra
Binder: Corojo
Filler: Dominican/Peruvian/Brazilian
Price: MSRP ~$20

Initial Impression/Prelight
The Emerald came in a pretty, green aluminum tube, and was sporting a deep brown, sun-grown Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper and a beautiful perfecto shape. It had some tiny teeth, and a fine, oily sheen along with one moderate vein contrasting with an otherwise smooth and high quality looking wrapper leaf. The cigar was firm to the point of hardness all up and down the length, and I had a fleeting concern about that signaling a tight draw. The aroma was mostly sweet hay, and pretty mild.

I clipped the end, and found the draw was perfectly firm, and the prelight flavor was just a mild tobacco sweetness and a hint of black pepper.

This cigar was a gift from my wife. She picked it up at my local B&M 9 days ago, and it's been in my humidor at 65% since then. I don't know exactly what they keep their humi at, but whatever the rH it's fine for me to smoke as soon as I buy from there, so I wasn't concerned about the humidity of this cigar.

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1st Third
I got that black pepper right away, but not too strong. Along with that was some generic, mellow woodiness. I felt like there was some leather around the edges too, but honestly the first section was mild-medium in flavor and strength, and more characterized by it's smoothness than anything else. The cigar gave off plenty of smoke and ash easily hung on into the second third.

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2nd Third
The flavors picked up, and the smooth trend continued into this section. I usually retrohale once per section, and even on the retro this baby was smooth. There was little sting, and a nice sweet spiciness on the retro. Otherwise the pepper died down some. That generic wood from earlier reminded me of mellow oak in this part, there was some nice toastiness along with the best flavor yet - a tangy sweetness. It wasn't citrusy, and not exactly BBQ, but closer to a sweet BBQ than anything else I can think of. The ash held past till I tapped it off past the halfway point, which meant it was over 2.5". I marked it medium flavor and still mild-med strength.

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Final Third
As with all the cigars in the Preferidos line, I liked the last section the most. It reminded me slightly of the Sapphire (Connecticut wrapper) with some salted nut flavor and hint of meatiness, but intertwined with a deep caramel sweetness to go with toast and the ever-present smooth oak. The smoke production picked up from average to above average, and stayed smooth and rich with a long finish in the last section.

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Overall Impressions
If you've read my other reviews on this line, you know I love them all. Hopefully I'm not biased by my good experiences with the others, because I'm telling you this was a real treat.

• Flawless burn. Not a single retouch, and it held a perfect line almost to the end. Even when it did get off a hair, it self-corrected quickly.
• I haven't smoked one of these Ecuador wrappers in a while, and this one was much silkier than I remember from my experiences last summer and early fall. It had a nice long finish, but never a hint of bitterness or bad aftertaste.
• No spitting required - yay.
• I nubbed the hell out of this one, and it tasted awesome even as it was burning my fingers.
• La Aurora purports to age the leaves for these cigars in old oak rum barrels for a year. I've never gotten much oak flavor from the others that I can recall, even though this one definitely had some. Thus I doubt this cigar's profile is actually derived from the barrels, but it's a cool piece of the story anyway.
• I know I'm repeating myself from earlier reviews, but I love the perfecto shape and I'll admit that I'd pay a little more for one vs. the exact same blend in a robusto.
• So all the other Preferidos line except this one utilizes the same filler, according to the LA website. Accordingly, I definitely didn't taste the similarities that I notice with the other cigars. Also, I don't remember noticing another cigar that says it uses Peruvian tobacco like this one does.
• It's really tough to rank them, but until I take the time to review the Platinum tubo, I'll go like this: 1. Sapphire 2. Gold 3. Emerald 4.Ruby.
  I can't believe the maduro is in last place on my list...But there you have it. After I scored it, I noticed it's got the exact same overall as the Gold too.
• I smoked it slow and tried to make it last - about 1 hour 35 minutes total.

This was easily my favorite smoke in the last month. That last section was especially great, with some nuts and wood playing really nicely with a richly sweet flavor. It rounded out medium flavor and medium strength to me, but very complex on the back half. It's worth taking a quiet hour or so to enjoy this cigar and try to pick out the flavors. I know the price is a little steep, but since I only smoke about 2 cigars each week I can justify it to myself to smoke the nicest sticks possible. Even so, the price is a consideration and I definitely don't smoke these all the time. If you can get your hands on some at a decent price, do it.

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