Stogie Reviews: La Flor Dominicana Reserva Especial Belicoso

In our July 26 post, Patrick mentioned that we planned to attend a La Flor Dominicana BBQ at Bethesda Tobacco. I just recently had the opportunity to smoke one of the cigars I purchased at that event – and I was not disappointed.

The La Flor Dominicana Reserva Especial Belicoso is a beautiful milk chocolate-colored stick in a silky Ecuadorian Connecticut seed wrapper. With a handsome red and black band, this smooth five and ½ inches by 52 ring gauge stogie is truly a pleasure to behold.

After snipping the cap with a double guillotine cutter and toasting the foot with my torch, the cigar gave off a delightful array of spicy notes. The first puff produced peppery bitter flavors with tiny hints of sweetness, an intriguing interplay between the Piloto Cubano filler and the Nicaraguan binder. Overall, this stogie yielded a nice, subtle balance on the palate. But – for a medium to full-bodied cigar – the flavors were not as pronounced as I would have liked.

Fortunately, there were no issues with body construction: The burn remained perfectly even throughout, and the draw was anything but cumbersome. In my own experience, I’ve noticed that a stogie’s physical attributes are at their peak when you don’t notice them at all. When there are no problems with burn and/or draw, the smoker can focus his or her attention on the most important characteristic: the taste of the tobacco.

On the whole, this is a superior cigar with a lot to offer. The only drawback is that its flavors aren’t as strong as advertised. Notwithstanding that critique, I give the La Flor Dominicana Reserva Especial Belicoso a very respectable four out of five stogies.

-Patrick A