Cigar Reviewed: My Father Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial

This is not what you would call a complex stick. But it is a thoroughly enjoyable smoke. I pulled this from a box at my local cigar store that was labelled belicoso. That would make it 5.5x52 and there is no way. This was more of a double wide - 4.75X60 torpedo. The wrap is Nicaragua grown Connecticut maduro and beautiful. It is oily and a deep cocoa. There are some small veins, a few bumps here and there, and almost invisible seams. The smell is milk chocolate, brown sugar, and earth. This is a densely packed cigar that is heavy in the hand. The pre-lit draw offers surprisingly light resistance. The toasting aroma is aged tobacco and earth with subtle chocolate and black pepper. Initially this has a light to medium body with a lot of pepper and earth. After the first inch the draw is perfect to me. I'm not going to break this down into thirds because the flavor is consistent throughout the smoke. The Reserve Especial has Nicaraguan binder and long leaf filler. It is medium body with earth, black pepper, and bittersweet chocolate. The pepper is dominant on retrohale with leather and oak in the background. The finish is really long with leather and chocolate as the oil coats your tongue. The burn line is thin and there was some unevenness due to 35 mph wind gusts. Once I moved to a place sheltered from the wind, it self-corrected and burned straight. The ash was firm (stop giggling) and held to about 2 inches before dropping. As I said earlier, there are not a lot of complex flavors here, but what is there is really good. This one is a finger burner if that is the flavor profile you like.