Cigar Review: El Centurion H-2K-CT Corona

Introduced in 2007, the original El Centurion blend was a highly limited release billed as Don José “Pepin” Garcia’s personal blend. It remains one of my favorite Pepin-made cigars: subtle, complex, and well-balanced. (No surprise it earned a rare five out of five rating.)

Building on that legacy and name, My Father Cigars reintroduced the El Centurion brand in 2013 with an entirely new blend. That cigar featured a sun-grown Nicaraguan wrapper around Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos.

This year, My Father Cigars introduced a second regular release El Centurion blend, dubbed the H-2K-CT, after the wrapper. H-2K-CT features a unique Cuban-seed Habano 2000 wrapper grown in Connecticut around Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos.

The line comes in two box-pressed sizes: Corona (5.5 x 48) and Toro (6 x 52). For this review I smoked three Coronas. This vitola sells for around $7 each. The H-2K-CT wrapper, which is reportedly exclusive to My Father Cigars, is rustic and toothy but also oily.

Once lit, there is some syrup sweetness initially, although it fades as flavors of roasted nuts, leather, and oak dominate this medium-bodied smoke. Towards the final third, some cedar spice emerges along with black coffee notes.

I remember when the Habano 2000 first burst on the scene over a decade ago (the Habano 2000-wrapped Maria Mancini was the first box of cigars I ever bought); the wrapper was well-received for its flavors but suffered from chronic burn issues. Time has solved some of those problems, and this Connecticut-grown variety suffers from none of those issues as the samples I smoked were well-constructed from start to finish.

The H-2K-CT brings a lot to the table. It’s balanced and restrained with a nice combination of both sweetness and spice. Add in excellent construction and a fair price and this is the best El Centurion since the original limited release, which still stands out to me as a particularly special cigar. That earns the My Father El Centurion H-2K-CT Corona a rating of four stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys