One has to be confident in thyself to smoke the Gran 107 or you could easily wind up with an inferiority complex. Back in the day when I managed a cigar shop in Brooklyn, NY we had a girl hang out in the shop we nicknamed Minnesota. A dead ringer for Angelina Jolie and she would often be stopped in the street with people thinking it was her. Same eyes, lips, and well body too. Everything accept the tattoos. One day while sitting in the shop she looks around at the guys smoking and says, “you can tell a lot about a guys manhood based on the size of the cigar he smokes”. A few of us looked at her perplexed before she continued, “a guy wont smoke a cigar larger them himself because he doesn’t want to feel inferior”. Of course one of the regulars who was smoking a short story declared it not to be true. While we debated the subject my business partner came out of the back room smoking a cigar measuring 18 x 66 and proceeded to declare what Minnesota said to be true. At that point the room erupted in laughter making for a typical night in the cigar shop.
The story on the Gran 107 has the rollers in factory smoking these large sizes and during a recent trip to the factory Guillermo was asked what the rollers were smoking. After some sampling of the product Guillermo gave his blessing for the cigar to go into production. Being that the United States has gotten so much into large ring gauge cigars this 7 x 58 monster should be well received. As you know we tend to be on the fence when it comes to the size, so when Miami Cigar sent us some to sample we hesitantly smoked them to formulate our review.
Kudos to The Cigar Feed for first breaking the story on the new size.
Cigar: La Aurora Gran 107
Size: 7 x 58
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sun Grown
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican, Nicaragua
Strength: Medium
Twitter: Guillermo Leon
La Aurora Gran 107
Appearance and Construction: The first thing you notice is how big the Gran 107 looks. It literally dwarfs every other cigar. The Ecuadorian Sun Grown wrapper is glistening with oils and surprisingly for its size there isn’t and over abundant of veins. Sure they exist but they are not as prevelent as one would expect. There is some tooth present, and there is weight to this cigar as well. Under the finger test there are a few small soft spots but they shouldn’t cause any major issues. The cigar looks good, and it definitely calls your attention to the cigar.
Flavor & Notes : As I light the cigar the first thing I notice is this cigar has some more strength to it then the previous vitolas. As we smoke the first third the cigar serves up notes of wood, nuts and spices. As we progress down the first third the wood notes begin to take on a smokiness and the nutty notes begin to strengthen. As we cross into the second third a sweetness develops reminding me a bit of wine with continued nuts as the wood begins to take a back seat. As we approach the final third the nuts remain the dominant note, with charred wood and Dominican spice.
Smoking Characteristics: As is with most cigar with a larger ring the ash holds strong The medium to dark ash was solid with no flake. The burn was a little bit jagged but I never needed to touch up the cigar. draw offered a touch more resistance then comfortable with.
Conclusion: I wasn’t sure if I would like the size, but it was better then I expected it to me. Keep in mind I am very fussy when it comes to large ring cigars. Those who do enjoy the size should be happy, and for those who wish the 107 was a little bit stronger this might be the stick to go with. For me I will continue to gravitate toward the corona.
Price: $9.00
Score: 89
Disclaimer: I was sent these samples by Jason Wood of Miami Cigar and handed a couple of more from Rene Castenada. As always we did not allow the free samples to sway our opinion one way or the other.
