Look down at the cigar in your hand. Is it Cuban? If not, chances are you wouldn’t be smoking it if it weren’t for Frank Llaneza.
The current issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine lists their top 25 cigars of 2011. Eight of the top 10 contain Nicaraguan leaf (the other two are Cuban puros). There are three Nicaraguan puros, and three other cigars which are Nicaraguan in filler and binder, with a wrapper of another origin. So to say that Nicaraguan tobaccos made a strong showing would be to put it lightly. No other tobacco growing location even came close. Not Honduras, not the Dominican Republic, not even Cuba.
Frank Llaneza 1961 Double Magnum (6½x54)
But I’m not here to talk about C.A.’s Top 25. I’m here to talk about the fact that Frank Llaneza, along with Angel Oliva, is a big part of why you’re smoking that cigar.
While Llaneza may be most closely associated with the Honduran HATASA, it was only after the Cuban Embargo that Llaneza opened the first factory in Danli, Honduras. Years earlier, even before the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Oliva began producing cigar tobacco in Nicaragua, much of it purchased by Llaneza’s Villazon, establishing the tobacco industry in Jalapa and opening the door to a new world of possibilities for cigar production.
After the Cuban Revolution, a long list of Cuban cigar masters escaped to other Caribbean and Central American havens to begin the long process of rebuilding, eventually producing many extraordinary cigars. But the seeds of change had been sewn (literally) nearly a decade earlier by the two visionaries and pioneers Frank Llaneza and Angel Oliva, who had the audacity to believe that excellent cigar tobacco could be grown outside of Cuba. If that groundwork had not been laid before the exodus, would masters like Jose Padrón, Carlos Toraño, or Manual Quesada have been able to establish the thriving brands they offer today? Thankfully we don’t have to answer.
Frank Llaneza 1961 cigars are only the second brand to wear the Llaneza name, the other being the El Rey del Mundo Flor de Llaneza. I selected the Double Magnum (6½x54). The wrapper is a ridiculously dark Ecuadorian Criollo wrapper (for the record, Criollo can be anywhere from a dusky sand color to a tawny brown, but this one is milk chocolate), and the fillers are Nicaraguan and Dominican, with a Nicaraguan binder.
The flavors up front are tangy, earthy and rotund, a straight-forward mix of rich espresso and mature tobacco tastes, with just a hint of caramel sweetness. The cigar is handsomely rolled, firm but supple, and the draw is even (0) from a cap cut, producing a hearty smoke volume (+1) of above-average strength (4).
You might expect a heavy dose of spice from such a dark Criollo wrapper, but the “cloud-grown” Ecuadorian terrior shows through in a smoother, rounder taste profile, that differs from many strictly sun-grown Criollos. There’s still plenty of bite from the rich blend, but it wouldn’t be a Llaneza cigar if there wasn’t.
The burn is self-correcting for the most part, though wandering slightly at the end, and the salt-and-pepper ash is slightly flat and nicely scaled, holding to just under an inch. The flavors are rock-steady for the duration, loosing none of the robust qualities of the early smoke, but resisting any inclination towards bitterness until the very end. It smokes to an inch and a half nub in a little more than an hour. I rate it 9.1, an excellent pair with a fine aged rum.
If the legacy of Frank Llaneza were only the cigar brands he created (Hoyo, Punch, Excalibur, El Rey Del Mundo, etc), his legend would be secure. But more than that, he founded an industry where none existed before, enriching the world with tobacco and cigars far better than it would have had without him, the boons from which benefit nearly every Central American and Caribbean cigar made today.
Until next time, this is the Cigar Sasquatch saying, “Love what you smoke, and smoke what you love.”
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