The Particulars

The Review

This review for the LA Cigar Collective Padre Elegido (Armorosos) - Toro (6 x 56) is based on the journal entry dated 2025-05-23

Appearance & Construction (0-3):  Average (2)

A nice medium milk chocolate brown with a light sheen but not much mottling. It’s a little bit on the drier side, but has a ton of fine tooth, giving it a velvety texture. Only a few veins, and they are on the thin and light side. It does have a number of light lumps coming from the binder layer that create the occasional edge lift on the seams, but otherwise, they’re all tight with a clean cap. The head of the cigar is flatter and less dome-shaped, so be careful with a guillotine as you could remove the entire head. I like the reserved simplicity of the single foot band as well.

Draw (0-3) & Burn (0-4):  Good (3) / Good (3)

The draw is spot-on and the burn starts nicely but a little unevenly. We’ll give it time to see if it starts going at different paces to different places or self-corrects. I give it a quick touch-up, wondering if I didn’t get the foot completely toasted properly, and now we have good smoke production and the burn quickly evens out. It has just the slightest ripples in an otherwise dead-even burn line by the end of the first third. The ash is a light gray, but it’s feathering a lot, which is the biggest issue I have with the burn through the shiny smoke.

Flavor Profile (0-5):  Excellent (5)

Immediate flavors are cedar, cocoa, and earth. Then a nice citrus sweetness creeps in. It’s a little grassy, a little musty, but a drier, very toasty set of flavors in the profile to start. Nuttiness, a lot of peanut shell flavor that gives a powdery mouthfeel. So peanut shells and powdered baking chocolate with a toasty bread and light woody base with a sweet and creamy finish. There’s a really nice zest going on with that citrus sweetness. There’s spice, but it’s mild. Hints of cinnamon and pepper.

Into the second third, this very enjoyable blend is carrying on. Grassy, woody, peanut shells, powdered cocoa, citrusy sweet, and a mild but strengthening pepper—all with a creamy finish—are just in harmony powering on. There’s really nice complexity to the blend and it’s very well-balanced. No real changes into the final third either. There’s absolutely no harshness or bitterness at all here, just smooth sailing the entire way as the flavors swirl and slightly grow in intensity.

Overall Experience (0-5):  Great (4)

A truly well-done blend that is a great homage with a meaningful story and mission behind it. And TBH, this is a fantastic Louisiana, hot-weather, high-humidity cigar that doesn’t rely on a Connecticut Shade wrapper to keep it light, while still bringing a ton of flavor. In closing, I say mission accomplished for bringing Old World inspiration to a New World blend. 🔥

Review Base Rating (0-5):

4.25

Would I Buy It Again?

Signs point to yes (recommended)

Review Final Score (0-10):

8.50

Overall Score and Individual Journal Entries

While the review is based off one instance of journaling this cigar; there’s a number of reasons you can have different experiences smoking the same cigar multiple times. A blend can evolve with age (for better or worse), palates evolves, preferences change, and sometimes you just get a bad example!  This section captures the ratings from each journal entry and the related journal photo.  Below you’ll find an aggregate score based on every time the cigar has been journaled. Unless it was a gift or on-off smoke, this section will be updated every time I journal this cigar!

The Flavor Wheel

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.

With every cigar I journal, I capture simple ratings of the basic flavor categories that I experience.  These are more generalized than what you would see in a review, but a distinct profile can still be built out.  When multiple instances of the same cigar have been journaled, the scores are averaged out in an attempt to build a reliable flavor profile based on my palate.

The values entered for the strength of each flavor range from 0 to 3.

• 0:   No flavor detected
• 1:   Mild flavor
• 2:   Medium flavor
• 3:   Strong flavor

Note: desktop / large screens will see a flavor wheel while mobile / small screens will see a bar chart.