La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra

As Tony said in his review on Tuesday, we both mysteriously came down with something nasty. I’m not back to 100% quite yet but I couldn’t let down our awesome readers so here I come today with a review of the La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra from My Father Cigars.

Now I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with the My Father Cigars brand, they are synonymous with awesome cigars. Jaime Garcia decided a long while ago to create a more wallet friendly line to add to the My Father Cigars inventory, and this is how the La Reloba line was born.

Just like most brands from the My Father lines, the La Reloba is a Nicaraguan puro made with high quality and aged tobacco leafs from their various farms. There are 3 wrappers offered in the La Reloba line which are Seleccion Sumatra, Seleccion Habano and Seleccion Mexico(Maduro). I also found some inklings online about a limited release Seleccion Oscura although I only can find them at one online source and they aren’t listed on the My Father Cigars website.

In the line of La Reloba we have 4 sizes which include the Corona, Robusto, Toro and Torpedo. Today’s cigar up for review is the Corona vitola which I’ve had the chance to smoke a few of. I had the Habano on hand but I haven’t had as many of them plus I decided to settle on a slightly milder blend since I was lighting this up just after lunch time.

Cigar: La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra by My Father Cigars
Drink: Unibroue Raftman
Vitola: Corona (5.625 x 46)
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Sumatra
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Price: Around $4
Burn Time: 1.5 hours

Construction:
• The La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra is wrapped with a fairly smooth leaf to the touch but the cigar itself is rather bumpy
• There are quite a few visible veins on the wrapper but none of them are very large, medium sized at most, and don’t look like they will cause any burn issues
• The orangey-chocolate colored wrapper has a nice oily sheen to it and the triple cap is finished with a couple loose edges
• From a little squeezing it’s easy to tell this is a very firm cigar and I hope that doesn’t cause any issues
• The foot looks extremely well packed, tons of leaf in there
• Cutting this cigar with my double bladed guillotine cutter was fairly easy but it caused a huge explosion of little pieces of tobacco

Burn:
• The toasting was very nice, even on this windy day it glowed evenly without much effort
• The initial burn looks promising and is keeping a razor sharp and even line
• The razor sharp burn continues through the first half, no touch ups needed at all and it’s letting me enjoy it nice and slow
• Great burn continued right to the end, nothing much else to report here!

Smoke & Ash:
• For a fairly small cigar this La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra is pumping out a ton of smoke from every draw
• Surprisingly though, the resting smoke is almost non-existent, as if it’s saving it all for me! lol
• The ash has a wonderful light grey, almost white color to it and is very smooth
• Despite being a smaller ring gauge cigar, the ash here is very strong and clean and held on over an inch before I tapped it off
• The crazy winds knocked off my next ash just short of an inch, missed a picture opportunity too 🙁
• Also realized the wind blew most of the ash right out of the ashtray!

Tasting Notes:
• The wrapper is giving off a barnyard and cedar aroma
• The foot brings a ton more barnyard aroma with almost no cedar, maybe just a touch of spice in there too
• The pre-light draw brings more of the barnyard and woodsy aromas, and maybe a touch of earth now too
• The initial flavors coming from this cigar are all about the woodsiness and spices, I’m getting an interesting punch of cloves along with a mild paprika maybe
• The spice died down a bit and I’m left with a bit of a leathery flavor to go with the cedar notes
• At nearly the halfway mark I’m starting to get some of the baking spice flavors that I find in almost every Sumatra wrapped cigar I have, sort of like some molasses and cinnamon
• The body on this cigar has been mostly in the low medium range and the retro hale has been giving a tiny bite with a smooth cedar finish
• The cedar and baking spices stuck through to the end and made for a nice enjoyable experience right to the nub
• No harshness or bitter buildup right to the finish

Final Thoughts:
This isn’t my first foray into the La Reloba series and it definitely won’t be my last. The La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra was a tasty treat that had a nice array of flavors to keep me interested the whole way through. It wasn’t as complex or dimensional as some of the other My Father Cigars but it was definitely enjoyable and fits nicely into their inventory. The burn was also spot on the whole way through which is always a big plus for me. The price is also very attractive for a quality cigar from the My Father Factory. I also have to admit I was surprised to see such a great burn and draw from this cigar when my initial inspection led to some concerns. Can’t complain at all about this cigar and I definitely will be picking up more in the future!

Pairings:
Next to the Scottish brewery of Innis & Gunn that I paired last week, another of my favorite breweries is none other than Canada’s own Unibroue. This place is based out of Quebec and has a HUGE inventory of brews with a ton of different and unique beers that are a rare find. Today’s brew is called Raftman and I only found a case of these while actually in Quebec, I’ve never seen it in any other stores so far. Now this brew was very interesting as the label says it is brewed with Whisky Malts so I just had to pick it up and give it a try. Well I’m glad I did cause this is one tasty brew and yet again another winner from Unibroue. It’s a fairly light amber beer but it packs in a ton of flavor. The whisky malts are very obvious as they give a classic touch of whisky, as if you just put a little whisky inside a good beer. Along with that it also has a delicious malty finish and some notes of sweetness as well. I found that it paired very well with the La Reloba Seleccion Sumatra as it added some flavors to the whole experience without either the cigar or the beer being overbearing on each other. Any medium bodied brew would go well here such as an Amber lager or even a dark ale, a nice coffee would definitely pair nicely here too.