Por Larrañaga Coronas RE 5ta Avenida 2017

[Tournesol]

Por Larrañaga Coronas Edición Regional 5ta Avenida (2017)

The latest regional release for Germany, Austria and Poland, was this 42 ring gauge and 142mm long corona by the Por Larrañaga marca. With a total of 80.000 cigars being produced for this regional release, the cigar has recently become available -strictly- through the local market and is sold in SLBs of 50 cigars, with an approx. price of €10.8 per stick.

A good mate of mine kindly purchased and posted over a couple of cigars for me to try. I'll admit that the overall looks did not get me too chuffed, since such a special release should have been at least a corona gorda in size. We've been used to most ER and ELs being a bit more chubby. On the other hand, the corona size is somewhat close to extinction, as only a couple marcas out there continue to keep this vitola into their regular production; could only think of QdO Coronas Claro and Monte's No.3.

The cigar is oily and smells gorgeous. You could pick up some strong cedar followed by honey. The draw is a bit problematic, as it appears that the cigar was rolled a bit too tight that usual. Nevertheless, after lighting it up, the draw seemed to ease up and continued to get more loose all the way to the end (phew).

The Corona started off on the earthy/herbal side, with some walnut crumble, wet timber and combined spicy sweetness of them cinnamon sticks. A delightful beginning with loads and loads of rich smoke.

I'm halfway in and those tastes have began to get more complex with a variety of herbal notes I could not even pick and yet put on paper. A bit further down the line and that complexity has reached to some bitter bergamot orange and glazed sugar.

Walnuts, more cinnamon -but on a cookie, very light and creamy caramel by the close of play, leaving with an overall impression of a quite nice cigar. Not really that great as I was originally expecting, but better than an average cuban smoke.