La Palina Maduro no. 40 Petite Lancero; where less is more.

La Palina Maduro no. 40

Small in stature, big on flavor.

These days, fat cigars are all the rage.  Even Cuba has started making fat versions of some stalwart favorites.  It’s easy to understand why: fat cigars burn slower and last longer, they tend to be mellow due to additional lower priming leaves, and they look like what we think cigars should look like…fat.  I mean, who would smoke a skinny cigar?  Well, as it turns out, many cigar makers and connoisseurs LOVE skinny cigars.  Lanceros, as they are called, generally have ring sizes of 40 or less, and run about 6-7 inches in length.  Translated into English, lancero means lance, a good name for these long, slender cigars.  And although these sticks don’t look like your typical cigar, they do have a lot going for them.

Why smoke a skinny cigar?

First off all, the thin gauge allows for a high wrapper to filler ratio.  I’m bad at math, but one can see that with less filler, the wrapper gains more importance in the blend.  Being on the outside, the wrapper adds a lot to the cigar’s aroma.  And with more wrapper, you get more aroma.  Plus, the thin gauge has fewer leaves, making the blend more concentrated.  This translates into more flavor.  But the lancero is hard to roll, a task left only to the most skilled torcedores.  In the hands of a master cigar blender, a lancero can be his/her tourbillon[i].  In the case of the La Palina Maduro no. 40, it is truly a cigar worth boasting about.

Discovering a new cigar.

We cigar collectors are always looking for the next great cigar.  We subscribe to magazines, read blogs, and thumb through cigar catalogs with great abandon.  But with so much information, it is sometimes hard to know which new cigars will resonate with our particular tastes.  So rather than follow a cigar brand, it’s often better to follow a cigar blender.  After all, these are the guys truly responsible for how a cigar tastes.  In the case of boutique cigars, the brand and the blender are often one in the same.  Such is the case with La Palina cigars.  Created and blended by Bill Paley, this boutique brand has gained a lot of praise, and rightly so.  I enjoy many of Mr. Paley’s creations, and when I read that he had blended a maduro lancero, I was very pleased.

La Palina Maduro no. 40

San Andres wrapper is gorgeous.

A maduro skeptic.

I usually don’t gravitate toward maduro cigars.  They can taste too earthy for me and, at worst, leave a gritty feeling in my mouth.  But a great maduro can be rewarding.  For example, the Padron 1926 Anniversary Maduro is out of this world.  But sometimes, maduro cigars are colored with cigar juice, or flavored with betume.  Although that is considered acceptable by the industry, I prefer a less processed cigar flavor.  For a maduro to be “true” (my own term), it has to be processed by fermentation only.  And knowing Mr. Paley’s palate, I trusted him to make a maduro that would live up to a very high standard.  And now that I am halfway through my first box, I can wholeheartedly say, these cigars are fantastic!

The nitty gritty.

The La Palina Maduro no. 40 has a lot going for it.  Its Mexican San Andres maduro wrapper is tried and true.  It had already been used on many outstanding cigars (San Lotano, Room 101, Alec Bradley Tempus Maduro, La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amore, to name a few).  Because I enjoy this wrapper, I thought it might be interesting to try it as a lancero.

The La Palina Maduro no. 40 is earthy, but with no gritty aftertaste.  It’s got a bitter chocolate richness that is offset with a touch of spicy sweetness.  Smooth to the nub, the finish remains pleasant throughout the length of the stick.   Some other cigars of this style might start out promising, but then turn bad at the halfway point.  Not the 40.  Its blend is clicking on all cylinders, pumping out loads of rich flavor with a draw that is firm, but never difficult.

Being a petite lancero, the La Palina Maduro no. 40 is quick smoke.  This could present a problem while watching a baseball game!  But there is a solution…if you finish your stick before the third inning, simply smoke a second one!  These things are so good they go down like candy.

If you like a good maduro, but have shied away from the lancero, the La Palina maduro no. 40 is a good opportunity to step into a whole new level of cigar enjoyment.  It’s a unique way to appreciate the craft of cigar making, while enjoying an enhanced flavor that only a lancero can deliver.  Smoking one may not make us look like The Most Interesting Man In the World, but if he were real, and truly a connoisseur, he would probably smoke a lancero.

The Specs:

Vitola: Petite Lancero (6×40).

Wrapper: Mexican San Andres maduro.

Binder: Honduras.

Filler: Nicaraguan.

Flavors: Dark chocolate, herbs.

Manufacturer: La Palina, Honduras.

Blender: Bill Paley.

Country of Origin: Honduras.

X Factor: 9.0

Finish: Nutty, pleasant.

Strength:  Medium.

Price: $9.00


[i] A tourbillon is a timepiece that shows off a watchmaker’s prowess.  Very hard to build, these watches counteract the effect of gravity, leading to better accuracy.

One Response to “La Palina Maduro no. 40 Petite Lancero; where less is more.”

  1. GZG

    Great review. I was just gifted a La Palina Maduro, but it was not the No.40. It was a Toro, and I’ve yet to smoke it. I thought the natural La Palinas I’ve smoked were fantastic and the fellow who gave me the maduro said it was pretty awesome. I like the Mexican Maduro wrapper that’s being used these days on the cigars you mentioned, too. Looks like I’m going to have to take it out and give it a whirl. I’ll probably pick-up the No.40 for comparison.

    Reply

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