My Father El Picador

About two weeks ago, I heard that a new My Father cigar had been released at Empire Cigars in Raleigh, N.C. It seems that the owner of the store, Hal Rubin, had asked José “Don Pepin” García to roll him a limited number of cigars in the cheroot vitola for his store alone, and Pepín agreed.

Now, as you may or may not know, Empire Cigars is also the home of the La Flor Dominicana Icepick, another store exclusive in (roughly) the same vitola. Here is a side by side photo of the “El Picador” on the left, and the Icepick on the right. I also find it interesting how different the wrappers are on each of them, the La Flor Dominicana looks like a very rustic wrapper compared to the My Father.

There were only 250 boxes of the El Picador rolled. Once they are gone, they are gone. While very little is known about the makeup of the cigar, I have confirmed that it is a new, never before used blend. The cigars come unbanded in cellophane and in boxes of 20, and here is what they look like.

• Cigar Reviewed: My Father El Picador
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: My Father Cigars S.A.
• Wrapper: Nicaragua
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Size: 5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 40
• Vitola: Cheroot
• MSRP: $5.15 (Boxes of 20, $103.00)
• Release Date: June 2010
• Number of Cigars Released: 250 Boxes of 20 Cigars (5,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked for Review: 3

The cigar itself is a well-rolled specimen with a fairly rough to the touch medium brown wrapper that just a bit of oil present and smells strongly of cinnamon, cedar, chocolate and pepper. There is a slight box-press to the cigar.

The first third had quite a bit of spice right off the bat, in fact, the spice was almost overwhelming any other flavors, at least for the first 15 puffs or so. However, after that, the spice died down quickly, but was still present, and I started tasting a great leathery wood flavor.

The second third had a very sudden shift in flavors, the spice died way down to almost nothing and quite a bit of creaminess started creeping in with nuts and vanilla notes that really took me by surprise.

Also, at this point, I really need to mention the burn line for this cigar, amazing does not begin to describe it, and I took a photo to show what I was talking about. The line never wavered, not once during the whole smoke.

The final third shifts flavors again with more spice coming to the forefront, and less sweet notes, more like the first third, but with the creaminess from the second third combined into a wonderful ending. It did get hot at the end, but that is most likely because I was trying to smoke it past when I should have stopped.

Final Notes:

• The burn and draw were near perfection for the entire cigar.
• Interestingly, while the el picador name of the cigar is close to the term picadura, his cigar is not a short filler cigar, but is made with long leaf.
• A picador is actually one of the pair of horsemen in a Spanish bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the tercio de varas which is the first of the three stages in a Spanish bullfight. And looking at the shape, the vitola does bear a small resemblance to a lance.
• The cigar did get very hot at the end, but in its defense, I was smoking it down way close to the nub, trying to get as much out of it as I could.
• The final smoking time was one hour and five minutes.