La Vieje Habana Celebracion Nacional (6 x 60, Cuban Corojo/ Nicaraguan/ Nicaraguan). A Cuban sandwich (short filler) cigar from the folks at Drew Estate.
This was an attempt at a ’nostalgia smoke’.
In the late 90’s (98, I believe) i attended the RTDA trade show in Nashville. As I was passing a booth, I was approached by a gentleman with a NY accent and he placed a cigar in my mouth and preceded to light it.It was a ’new’ cigar named La Vieje Habana. There were 4 cigars in the line. All 4 were torpedoes and there was a longer and shorter length of two different mixes. One, I believe, had a CT shade wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and the filler was Dominican and Nicaraguan short filler. The one that I was presented with had the same binder and fillers but, had an Ecuadorian Rosado wrapper. I spoke briefly with a couple of men there and was really enjoying the taste. I was going to walk the floor, smoking the cigar, and agreed to contact them, after the show, if I wanted to order.
As I walked the floor, the cigar sort of started to deconstruct. One of the competitors at another booth offered to get me a “real” cigar that, would not fall apart. I told him that, I could not put it out because it tasted so damn good. It did indeed.
I had several samples that I smoked over the next few weeks but, I could never reach these guys when I tried to order some more. They operated out of a kiosk at the World Trade Center. Maybe they had more business than they could handle.
When 9/11 occurred, I always wondered what happened to those guys. I, of course, learned later that, they had hit the big time with infused cigars and even later, became ”real” cigar players.. The La Vije had fallen to the wayside.
This next statement will be a bit shocking. To this day, those early Rosado wrapped cigars are the closest taste to a Cuban cigar that, I have ever smoked in a non-Cuban.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about this current iteration. The wrapper is different and it has a vegetal taste. It does share the same crappy construction
