Cohiba Coronas Especiales LAU DIC 16

Jose_A_Rodriguez · August 10, 2017

Against my better judgement (cigar being only 9 months old), I decided to light up one of the CCS from one of my two boxes that I recently purchased. But for cigar-aging-sake, I gotta get a reference point.

Impecable contruction and beautiful chocolate wrapper.

First 3rd:

Quite muted at the beginning of first third showing mainly oaky and cedar notes and some coffee notes. The only thing going in the right direction for this cigar was the lack of any ammonia signs. First impression was that it was just too young. In fairness, I was just going to leave it unrated and put the boxes in the "do not touch for a minimum of two years" category.

Middle 3rd:
Wow! During its transition from first to second third, it suddenly opened up turning itself into a creamy and semi-sweet smoke. Wow! Very pronounced cream coffee that was quickly being complemented with tons of nuttiness, more specifically hazelnut and pecan notes. The finish had persistent Nutella-like notes. Wow, what an unexpected transformation! At this point, I unrealistically wanted this smoke to remain this way until the very end.

Final third.
The Creaminess and specially the nutty notes continued into the final third. At this point, it was hazelnut galore with vanilla lingering in the background. Oak and vanilla notes were now dominating the finish. Again, I truly didn't want this experience to end. And just when I thought I wasn't going to be surprised anymore, it suddenly revealed its well-hidden full strength when I experienced a big nicotine rush at around 10 minutes into this final third.

95 points and I might be under rating it. I rarely smoke a cigar into the lip-burning stages, but I just couldn't put this one away. Not sure which factory is "LAU", but I'm going to seek a couple more boxes with the LAU code to age. Due to its young age, I was speechless when it finally did open up. It's going to be really hard to stay away from my current boxes.