La Flor Dominicana TAA 49

By Tony Casas | July 17, 2017

We’ve been getting a ton of rain lately that’s been cooling us down to a cool 95 degrees with a ton of humidity. The good thing about humidity though is that it doesn’t make you sweat as much when you’re sitting still resulting in a nice relaxing day out back with a La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 and a bottle of Avery’s Barrel Aged Coconut Porter.

The Good Stuff:

The Tobacco Association of America, or TAA is a group of around 80 retailers nationwide that meet annually to discuss and plan to address issues facing the cigar industry. Many cigar manufacturers choose to create special blends that are only sold at TAA retailers to support these for standing up for the industry. For the sixth year in a row La Flor Dominicana is one of those manufacturers releasing the TAA 49. The TAA 49 is based off last year’s TAA 48 blend utilizing a Connecticut Wrapper (the TAA 48 used a natural San Andres wrapper while there was a special edition TAA 48 that was limited to special events which carried the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper), Cameroon binder, and Dominican fillers. The cigar is offered in a single 6 x 54 box-pressed format which comes packaged in boxes of ten running $9.90 a stick. These are manufactured at the Tabacalera La Flor S.A. in Dominican Republic and I picked mine up from our good friends at Ford on Fifth.

Size: 6 x 54
Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf
Binder: Cameroon
Filler: Dominican Republic
Body: Full
Strength: Full
Price: $9.90
Pairing: Avery Barrel Aged Coconut Porter (Baltic Porter 10.4% ABV)

Prelight:

The La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 starts out with a meaty, extremely dark brown, consistent, rustic looking wrapper. The texture on the wrapper is incredibly toothy (it feels much like a gritty sandpaper), and decently oily. The wrapper showcases some darker natural webbing throughout the wrapper leaf as well as some slight veins running through the long box-pressed body leading up to a round triple wrapped cap. The cigar is very firm, and the wrapper is insanely dense and hard. The cigar is pushed off with the standard gold, maroon and black band with the LFD crest in the front, as well as a maroon and gold secondary band with the TAA moniker.

The wrapper on the La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 gives off a bunch of spice and pepper aromas while the foot of the cigar carries a bit of dirt and moss over natural tobacco scents. The cap took a bit of extra pressure from my Xikar double bladed XO cutter. Probably due to the density of the wrapper, but it did cut very clean so no complaints there. The cold draw produces a ton of raisin, cayenne pepper, and tartness.

First Third:

Despite the bold pepper in the cold draw of the La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 the cigar started out with little to no pepper, lots of raisin and brown sugar, strong spice, vanilla, and musk with some tartness left on my palate on the aftertaste. I absolutely love how this cigar is starting out.  The draw is perfect releasing a great amount of thick white smoke into my mouth with each little puff while the cigar smokes like a chimney as it rests in my ashtray. The burn line is slightly wavy, and pretty thick leaving behind some flaky light and dark gray ash which held in place for a little under an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the La Flor Dominican TAA 49 and the dirt/moss/earthy flavors I picked up in the cold draw are starting shine through the sweetness, raisin, vanilla, musk, brown sugar and spice. It almost tastes like Christmas if that makes any sense. Now that I think of it, I’m even picking up a bit of spice here. The retrohale coats my nasal passage with some great spice and oak that I am not picking up in the standard draw. The cigar is still burning pretty wild but I have had to reach for my torch just yet as I close out the second third with only a slight little nicotine kick.

Finish:

The strength really ramps up in the final third of the La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 and is now well in the Full category. The flavors have started to blend and cream together at this point with the oak I picked up in the retrohale leading the charge backed by spice, raisin, musk, and brown sugar. There wasn’t too much in terms of change-ups in this cigar but the flavor profile more than makes up for that. It took me 2 hours to take this cigar down to the nub and I experience no harshness, nor any extra heat it did leave me with a hell of a nicotine punch though.

Overview:

The La Flor Dominicana TAA 49 was off to the races right out the gate and never stopped pouring it on. With a fantastic flavor profile, bold body, and a ton of strength this cigar isn’t for the faint of heart. But LFD rarely is. This powerhouse cigar was right up my alley all while supporting the TAA. You can’t really ask for more than that. With a price of $9.90 this cigar falls right in the center of what I would pay for it. It’s not something I could smoke often as it would knock me on my ass each time, but with the 10 count boxes I could easily see this as a box-worthy purchase. At least pick up a 5-er.

Pairing:

Avery’s Barrel Aged Coconut Porter is an imperial porter brewed with coconut before being aged in bourbon barrels. Coming out of the Avery Brewery in Boulder Colorado this beer comes in at a whopping 10.4% ABV. The beer leads with sweet coconut, vanilla, malt, cocoa, bourbon, and a bit of booziness with a rather light mouthfeel before finishing clean with more sweet coconut, brown sugar, malt and vanilla. As the beer warms more and more of the already bold coconut comes out as the overall experience becomes sweeter. Its easy to see why I chose to pair this beer with the sweet flavors in the La Flor Dominicana TAA 49. I think this cigar would also pair well with a heavy Belgian quad, or even a nice spiced stout.