Cigar Review: La Palina El Diario KB
19 Mar 2012
This new addition to La Palina’s El Diario line has been anticipated since late last summer. KB, short for “Kill Bill,” is a small corona (4.5 x 40).
The name is a reference to the cigar’s strength and La Palina owner William Paley, who is called Bill or “Little Bill” to his family. As the re-founder of La Palina (his grandfather Samuel Paley founded the brand in 1896 but Bill Paley re-established it a few years ago) explains in this video, it is La Palina’s strongest cigar yet.
Like the other El Diario sizes, the blend is a collaboration between La Palina and Alan Rubin of Alec Bradley. Paley used Rubin as his point man to produce the cigars at the Raices Cubana factory in Honduras, where many Alec Bradley cigars are made, in addition to such highly regarded cigars as Illusione, Viaje, and many of the Padilla lines.
The cigar features Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco. The wrapper is an oily Honduran corojo ’99 rosado leaf. Underneath are dual Honduran criollo ’98 binders that surround the Nicaraguan filler composed of corojo ’99 and criollo ’98 leaf.
Paley is right about this being the most potent La Palina yet. Even though the blend is the same, the size intensifies the flavors. There’s a spicy dark chocolate flavor that’s reminiscent of Mexican mole. Additionally, there’s a syrupy sweetness, oak, and dark charred notes.
Construction was perfect in each of the two samples I smoked, which you’d expect from a $9 cigar. The KB comes in a four-pack ($35 MSRP) and has just shipped to retailers who will get sleeves of five four-packs (20 cigars each). The sixth size in the El Diario line will be regular production, but is only being made in limited numbers right now.
While not perfectly balanced, KB makes up for it with bountiful flavors and a substantial nicotine kick. This new smoke is my favorite vitola in the El Diario line. That earns the La Palina El Diario KB an impressive rating of four and a half stogies out of five.
[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]
photo credit: Stogie Guys
Patrick Ashby
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Patrick Semmens
Co-Founder & Publisher
George Edmonson
Tampa Bureau Chief
I never much cared for the name Kill Bill in the movie.
Bill
Muwahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
Sounds promising. I'll be looking for these in the shop.
man my granddad would love this, he always stocks up on good cigars when he visits Mexico, I dont think hes seen this one before, I would know cause he shows me his collection every time I visit him lol