Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower

By Tony Casas | November 18, 2019

I know I’ve been a bit spotty lately. I had a pretty rough cold followed by yet another death in the family. This week, I took time to be grateful for everything and everyone I have in my life. Taking a break for everything I ventured out back with a Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower and a Chimay Premiere.

The Good Stuff:

The Flor de Valle blend was originally released by Warped cigars back in 2014 and was the first cigar Warped collaborated on with Casa Fernandez’s TABSA factory. Fast forward a bit and the company is released a new spin-off of the blend featuring Casa Fernandez’s famous High-Priming Medio Tiempo tobacco in the blend. Medio Tiempo is a high priming leaf that only grows on some tobacco plants eating up more sunlight and nutrients which results in a more full-bodied, flavorful leaf. This also explains the rarity of the leaf as well.

Along with the Media Tiempo the blend features a similar make up to the rest of the Flor de Valle blend: a Nicaraguan Jalapa Corojo 99 wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and Nicaraguan Corojo 99 and Criollo 98 fillers. The Skyflower is released in a single 5 5/8 x 48 Gran Corojo format packaged in boxes of 10 running $15 per stick. This is a limited edition cigar and it will go fast, so get them while you still can. We got ours over at Fox Cigar who still have some in stock last time I checked and offer free shipping on everything, no minimum.

• Size: 5 5/8 x 48
• Wrapper: Nicaraguan Jalapa Corojo 99
• Binder: Nicaraguan
• Filler: Nicaraguan Corojo 99 and Criollo 98
• Body: Full
• Strength: Full
• Price: $15
• Pairing: Chimay Premiere (Belgian Dubbel 7% ABV)

Prelight:

The Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower starts out with a very meaty, rustic looking wrapper thats sports lots of different medium to dark browns as well as splotches of orange scattered throughout. The wrapper itself feels semi-dense and hard while the cigar as a whole is very tightly packed and heavy as a rock. The wrapper carries lots of natural tobacco leaf webbing as well as some very minor veins running their course through the cigar’s body up to the round, triple-wrapped cap. The cigar is then polished off with a very beautiful, complex, black gold and blue wrapper carrying the Flor de Valle crest.

The wrapper on the Wrapped Flor de Valle carries a very sweet aroma with notes of chocolate and spice while the foot of the cigar is much more earthy with musk and natural tobacco aromas along with a very sharp spice. The cap cut clean and easily using my Xikar double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces bold musk, dirt, and natural tobacco flavors.

First Third:

The Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower starts out with a massive cayenne pepper zing that really did a number on my lips and tongue. Once the pepper finally started letting up the cigar released bold notes of musk and pecan over caramel, earthiness, and a ton of spice. This start really gets off and running right from the start. The draw is absolutely brilliant as every little puff kicks out huge clouds of thick, white smoke that really hang out for a while before slowly dissipating while the cigar itself releases an average amount of stationary smoke as it rests in my ashtray. The burn line is pretty wavy but razor thin leaving behind a trail of tightly compacted medium gray ash which held on for almost an inch before giving way.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower and man, this cigar is just pumping out flavor. The pecan is still leading the charge along with musk and caramel over notes of earthiness, espresso, spice, and a nice floral flavor that seems to pop up every now and again. The retrohale is very sharp with tons of pepper and spice and I can’t stomach doing it very often. The burn line is still a bit wavy but it hasn’t needed any additional attention from my torch yet as I close out the second third with a decent little nicotine kick already.

Finish:

Deep into the final third of the Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower and the flavors have began to balance out. There is a great, bold cedar that has entered the arena paired with the pecan make for a great leading profile backed by caramel, spice, espresso and musk with a strong reemergence to the cayenne pepper I picked up at the start of the experience. It took me two hours to take this cigar down to the nub and wow did it leave me with a very heavy nicotine kick. I experienced no harshness, nor extended heat and despite the wavy burn line I never once had to break out my torch to touchup or relight the cigar.

Overview:

I have always enjoyed the cigars that Warped has offered and over the past year or so I have really started to fall in love with the company and the Skyflower is a perfect example of why. Warped, especially when teamed up with TABSA create some deeply complex cigars utilizing many rare tobaccos resulting in very unique experiences. The Skyflower is bold, complex, and tasty. While the price point is pretty expensive, it’s justified considering the use if Medio Tiempo tobacco and something I don’t mind paying for considering the result.

Pairing:

Over time Chimay has became and household name and in many cases tends to get overlooked when choosing what beer to drink. I love how great these beers hold up and am always pleased when I go back and revisit them. Premiere Ale is Chimay’s standard Belgian Dubbel release. The beer starts off with lots of malt, sweet brown sugar, spice, apple and caramel with a very light mouthfeel before finishing with even more brown sugar and apple with a nice malty finish. The Warped Flor de Valle Skyflower is a bold cigar with lots of overpowering flavors so I wanted to pair it with something that complimented the flavors while adding some sweetness to the experience and the Chimay accomplished just that.