HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare

Nearly a year ago, as the TPE 2022 trade show opened, the first booth I went to was Renier Lorenzo’s HVC Cigars. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only did the company have a new cigar, it had a decidedly different cigar from what HVC typically sells.

On display was the upcoming HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare, which represents a few firsts for the company. Somewhat confusingly, this cigar uses the same name as the HVC La Rosa 520 line that the company released in 2015. While the bands of the La Rosa 520 and this cigar are the same—that’s pretty much where the similarities stop.

The original La Rosa 520 is a Nicaraguan puro made in Nicaragua. The HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper, an Ecuadorian Sumatra binder and very little Nicaraguan tobacco in the filler. The filler includes Dominican tobacco—a first for HVC—and medio tiempo tobacco from Estelí, Nicaragua; this is also the first time the company says it has worked with medio tiempo tobacco.

Medio tiempo is a priming of tobacco—the way a plant is divided into sections vertically—that is found above the ligero priming, typically the highest priming. It’s only found on certain plans and only some growers go through the effort of classifying it separately from ligero. Given its position on the plant, if a plant has medio tiempo tobacco growing on it, that tobacco should be the strongest tobacco from that plant. In recent years, a variety of manufacturers have marketed their cigars as explicitly containing medio tiempo tobacco. Previously, that tobacco was typically classified as ligero.

However, the most obvious first for the company is that this cigar is made at El Titan de Bronze in Miami, the first time the company has had a cigar made outside of Central America.

While it was originally scheduled to ship in March 2022, it wasn’t until early December that the cigar finally began shipping to stores.

• Cigar Reviewed: HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare
• Country of Origin: U.S.A.
• Factory: El Titan de Bronze
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Sumatra)
• Binder: Ecuador (Habano)
• Filler: Dominican Republic (Criollo 98) & Nicaragua (Medio Tiempo, Estelí)
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Belicoso
• MSRP: $20 (Box of 10, $200)
• Release Date: Dec. 2, 2022
• Number of Cigars Released: 500 Boxes of 10 Cigars (5,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

While I don’t think cigars from El Titan de Bronze look that different from many cigar factories, the baseline appearance of a cigar from El Titan de Bronze is very high and the La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare is no different. It’s a well-rolled torpedo with a great amount of red hues and oils breaking through the brown color. That said, the color isn’t all that consistent and there’s plenty of vein structure breaking through. The most unique part is the feel, a very supple feeling wrapper to the touch. The aroma is medium-plus with earthiness, manure and leather—a pretty standard mixture of smells. The foot has sweet chocolate and leather along with some ammonia that reminds me of tobacco sweating. It’s medium-full in its overall presence, though the individual flavors themselves aren’t all that intense. Cold draws have sweet chocolate dominating leather, citrus, hickory and red apple. To give you some more context, the second strongest sensation outside of the chocolate-like flavor is actually some of the barnyard smells from the wrapper.

The HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare starts with toastiness, earthiness, leather, white pepper, a bread-like creaminess and some bread. It’s quite intertwined, though the flavors are much more developed than the pre-light aromas and flavors. The first inch has this dry hay flavor that I find more and more in cigars these days, though it dissipates before the end of the first third. As the hay reduces itself, walnut and a pizza crust-like bread emerge as the strongest flavors. Secondary notes include a butter-like creaminess, saltine crackers, black pepper and occasionally some steak sauce that I can detect on one side of my mouth. Pistachios and charred woods are the strongest flavors during the transition to the finish, though a dry cracker flavor, butter, sharp wood flavors, toastiness and some harshness eventually take over. At times, the finish has a lot of amaro-like qualities. Retrohales have brown mustard leading some bread, creaminess and earthiness. The retrohale’s flavors are much more intertwined than the main flavors. Some of that hay flavor comes back during the finish, initially joined by meatiness and fruitiness. A second or two after the smoke has completely left my nostrils, there’s a quick succession of flavors—citrus, toastiness, leather, white pepper and straw—before earthiness and black pepper take over as the long-lasting flavors. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium and strength is medium. Construction on two cigars is fantastic, though one sample requires a touch-up during the first third.

While there are plenty of flavor changes, the largest change during the second third is that the texture of the smoke seems chalkier than before. Flavor-wise, it’s still quite earthy with bread, toastiness and black pepper as the strongest secondary flavors. A great tart citrus and some marinara sauce-like touches can be found as distant tertiary notes. I think that’s due to the cigar getting a lot more acidic during the second third. It never gets too acidic, but if you are a fan of that sensation in alcohol or food, the Rare of Rare provides it in a way few cigars do. Some puffs during the second third can be particularly bread-forward but that’s not how I would describe the second third in totality. That acidity carries over into the finish where earthiness is still the strongest flavor. Herbal flavors, a terroir-like quality, cinnamon and meatiness join as secondary or accent notes. At times, the cigar—due to the dryness and herbal flavors—can really get a cannabis-like flavor. Retrohales have leather, earthiness, white pepper and creaminess over some black pepper, nuttiness, oranges and a generic harshness. Sometimes, the finish ends up being basically just black pepper. Other puffs deliver sensations of leather, earthiness, creaminess, tartness and white pepper. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength is medium-plus. There are no construction issues in the second thirds of the three cigars I smoke.

Pairing with the sentence above, each cigar has a burn issue towards the beginning of the final third. This is both an issue related to smoke production and one where part of the cigar no longer appears to be burning. After letting the cigar cool back down after the touch-up, I reevaluate the flavor profile. Earthiness still leads but creaminess is picking up a lot—to the point where I feel like if I had three inches of cigar left instead of less than two inches, I’m guessing the creaminess would eventually become the strongest flavor. Leather and white pepper are the standout secondary notes. There’s still some acidity and citrus, but it’s nowhere as dynamic as it was in the second third. The leather picks up on the finish, beating out the earthiness for the top spot. A bright nuttiness emerges and the acidity is stronger than it was, maybe due to a reduction in pepper. The retrohale is an amalgamation of sorts: leather, white pepper, the dry straw and acidity, the latter stronger than the rest of the final third but not as strong as the second third. That continues to the finish, where the acidity and tartness get even stronger, once again, I wonder if that’s due to the now complete lack of pepper. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength is medium-plus.

Final Notes

• La Rosa 520 refers to the address of Lorenzo’s childhood home in Havana.
• I have no idea why this should be a La Rosa 520 release. The blend is completely different, the factory is different, even the box is very different. Seemingly, this might have been easier for consumers to just call this the “HVC Rare of Rare” even if it ended up using the same bands as the La Rosa 520, though I’d argue using a different band would have been a good idea.
• I’m not normally one to suggest that cigar companies should add more bands to cigars, but this is an instance where I think that would have made a lot of sense.
• The acidity, particularly during the second half of the cigar, is what I’ll remember most about this cigar. It’s a unique quality and one that might really appeal to a certain group of people.
• If you are thinking this sounds familiar, but with a different cigar, Luciano Cigars talked about pH as part of the development of Mas Igneus, a relatively new line for the company.
• I think it’s fair to say that most cigars produce more mouth salivation during the finish versus when the smoke is physically still in the mouth. To some degree, physics and timing make it that way by default. But the La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare is a cigar where the mouth salivation is basically turned off until the smoke leaves the mouth. The contrast is much more noticeable here than I find on most cigars.
• Prior to 2022, every single HVC we reviewed was made at either Agricola Ganadera Norteña S.A.—formerly TABSA—or Raíces Cubanas. With the opening of HVC’s own factory, Fábrica de Tabacos HVC S.A. de Reinier Lorenzo, and this cigar—that number of factories doubled from two to four.
• I would be very surprised if all of HVC’s blends don’t eventually move over to the company’s own factory. There are times in which it makes sense not to consolidate production into a single factory, but the reasoning really changes when an existing company opens up its first factory.
• Speaking of which, we’ve seen an established company open up its first factory twice in recent memory, the other being Cavalier Genève opening up a factory in Honduras in 2021. I’m not really sure who I would peg as the next company to do this. I’ve tried to think of which company would seem like an obvious candidate to do this next and I just can’t really see it. If I was forced to pick, perhaps it’s Selected Tobacco S.A. but I feel like if that was going to happen it probably already would have. Then again, that same logic could have been said about HVC and Cavalier Genève.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was right around two hours.
• Site sponsors Atlantic Cigar Co., Cigars Direct and Famous Smoke Shop carry the HVC La Rosa 520 Rare of Rare.