Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Flying Pig

For years, Camacho, Drew Estate and Rocky Patel brought thousands of cigar smokers—both consumers and retailers—to Honduras and Nicaragua through cigar tourism programs. Each of these companies invested in these operations by building places for guests to stay near or at cigar factories, creating programs for the guests, and hiring staff members to oversee and run these programs. These tours were great at turning smokers into super fans, even ambassadors for the brands, but there’s always been one issue: they’re in Central America.

In 2015, Drew Estate launched the Barn Smoker series of events as a way to expand on Cigar Safari, its cigar tourism program, while avoiding many of the Cigar Safari-related issues: travel to Nicaragua, limited capacity, strain on the resources of the Cigar Safari staff, seasonality, etc.

Instead of having people fly to Nicaragua, Drew Estate hosted day-long events at tobacco farms in Kentucky and Connecticut. Since then, the Barn Smokers have expanded; there were events in five different states scheduled for 2020. While the locations are different, the event program is pretty similar: attendees tour the tobacco farm and operations, meet and greet Drew Estate personalities, enjoy live music, raffles benefiting Operation Cigar for Warriors, barbecue and, of course, cigars.

Since the first one in 2015, Barn Smoker events have been a place to get unreleased Drew Estate products like Liga Privada A’s or even prototypes of potential new cigars like the Herrera Estelí Flying Pig. This year, Drew Estate added an interesting twist, as it created the Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Flying Pig as a Barn Smoker exclusive.

For consumers, it was pretty simple: buy a VIP ticket and you’ll get the H99 Flying Pig. But for retailers who wanted the cigar, they too could attend the event and, if they qualified, would then be able to purchase up to five boxes of the cigar, which they could then sell at their store.

There were three such Barn Smoker events in 2023:

• Pennslyvania Barn Smoker (July 15, 2023) — Lancaster, Pa.
• Connecticut Barn Smoker (Aug. 12, 2023) — Ellington, Conn.
• Florida Barn Smoker (Nov. 11, 2023) — Clermont, Fla.

The H99 Flying Pig is the same size as the other Flying Pigs from Drew Estate, meaning a 3 15/16 x 60 double perfecto with a long coil cap. It was an idea hatched by Steve Saka when he was president of Drew Estate. Saka said he saw a printed 1895 sales catalog for a Tampa-based cigar factory, one that a salesman would take to various stores to try to sell the cigars, and always thought the vitola was interesting given how difficult it would be to roll. In 2009, Drew Estate made around 25,000 Liga Privada No. 9 Flying Pigs, all rolled by just one pair. Since then, the company has expanded the Flying Pig from a limited edition size to a limited but regular production offering in Liga Privada blends as well as others in the Drew Estate portfolio.

The H99 blend uses a Connecticut corojo wrapper over a Mexican San Andrés Otapan Negro Último Corte binder and fillers from Honduras, Nicaragua and Pennsylvania, the latter of which is the infamous Green River One Sucker, known for its strength and potent flavor.

“The beautiful hybrid wrapper that graces H99 Liga Privada, combined with the elements of our wildly popular Flying Pig vitola makes this a true masterpiece,” said Jonathan Drew, president and co-founder of Drew Estate, in a press release. “This new addition to the H99 and Flying Pigs squadron is extremely limited because of the rarity of our H99 capas and because just a few people at La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate in Estelí are qualified to roll the Piggies. H99 Flying Pig is a sexy beast indeed.”

• Cigar Reviewed: Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Flying Pig
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: La Gran Fábrica Drew Estate
• Wrapper: U.S.A. (Connecticut Corojo)
• Binder: Mexico (San Andrés Negro)
• Filler: Honduras, Nicaragua & U.S.A. (Pennsylvania)
• Length: 3 15/16 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 60
• Vitola: Flying Pig
• MSRP: $20.50 (Box of 12, $246)
• Release Date: July 15, 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: Undisclosed
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

After more than a decade, the Flying Pig remains one of the most interesting-looking cigars you’ll see. While I’ve smoked dozens of them over the years, it’s probably been a few years since I last picked one up, but I’m quickly reminded of the unique physical properties: short, fat and round. The font color of the H99’s band seems to want to bring out the darker reds of the wrapper, which it does well here. At an average weight of just under 15 grams, none of the three cigars are all that heavy—no doubt due to the short length—but they each feel quite dense. These cigars don’t come in cellophane, and I’m not able to pick up much beyond the smell of cigar tobacco and paper from the medium aromas. The feet are medium-full with raisin sweetness leading pistachios, oak and tobacco. One cigar has more of a cola sweetness than raisins, but they are pretty similar across the board. Cold draws are medium-plus or medium-full with milk chocolate leading floral flavors, caramel, wheat and graham crackers. One cigar has more of the grains, which leads me to think of sweet cereal, though there’s some saltiness.

I don’t find any similarities between the first puffs of the three Liga Privada H99 Flying Pigs I smoke. One cigar starts medium-full with dry cereal over apple, leather and mineral flavors. Another has some weird nuttiness and Pringles-like crisp potatoes over some pralines and an aggressive sharpness. The final cigar doesn’t have much smoke volume on the first puff, though there’s earthiness, toastiness, leather and some burnt black pepper. I suppose there is one similarity: the draw is open. Rich earthiness—sweet earth, barnyard, minerals—joins pralines, generic coffee, toastiness, some creaminess and some pepper burn. The profile is extremely compact, meaning that each puff is typically different as the flavors rearrange themselves, or probably more likely, my ability to taste the flavors changes from puff to puff. The finish sees the earthiness back down slightly, allowing for creaminess and some roasted potato flavors to come through more, though the sharpness is also more detectable. Retrohales tend to bring out the barnyard and creaminess more, though some just seem to ramp up the earthiness. Flavor is full, body is medium-full or full, and strength is medium-full. I’ve always identified Liga Privada as a family of cigars with superior construction and abnormally high smoke production. The latter is not the case here; I find all three cigars need a touch-up from the lighter to help with combustion and, in the case of one cigar, a very uneven burn. Smoke production is average, rarely a puff delivering what I associate with Liga levels of smoke production.

By the midpoint of the Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Flying Pig, I’ve written off the idea of any dramatic changes. The layered and rich earthiness continues to lead, and there are increased amounts of potato starchiness and nuttiness, perhaps at the expense of the toastiness. Vanilla cake batter, sweet caramel, leather, dryness and floral flavors can be detected on some puffs, but none are consistent puff-to-puff or cigar-to-cigar. The largest change seems to be that the pepper burn is slightly more isolated than the other flavors, which are otherwise presented in a very compact core. The finish sees the nuttiness and toastiness pick up, the earthiness fade a bit, and the pepper nearly completely disappears, save for some mild burn in the center of the tongue. Retrohales are still earthy, but I get some bright brown mustard, saltiness, bread, and a stale bottled water flavor. For a few minutes, one cigar has a distinct butter flavor, though I can’t find it on the other two cigars. The finish of the retrohale is pretty similar to the main flavor, though the toastiness can increase, which drowns out some of the other flavors. At some points, I can taste other flavors—bread, wet fall leaves and muted butterscotch—but it’s largely about the very compact core that has set the tone from the first few minutes. Flavor is full, body is full and strength is medium-full. The cigar with the uneven burn continues to have combustion issues, but the other two cigars seem to have found a rhythm and construction is fine other than the predictably open draw.

Unlike some cigars with very defined transitions, the final third of the Liga Privada H99 Flying Pig seems pretty similar to just about any other point that preceded it. Earthiness remains the strongest part of the core, though nuttiness can overtake it during some puffs. There’s more of a burnt wood flavor towards the back of the throat and mild flavors of vanilla, bread, muted butterscotch and pepper. The potato flavors seem to be gone, though it’s not enough to dramatically change the flavor. The finish tastes as if the profile was dried out and turned into powder form. I’m not sure if that’s more of a flavor or a texture thing, but it’s different from earlier parts. Again, some puffs can have the nuttiness overtake the earthiness, though the majority of puffs have more earthiness than nuttiness. Secondary flavors include milk chocolate, harsh pepper, leather, toastiness, white rice and, after 30 seconds, an odd citrus flavor. None of the puffs have all of these flavors, or at least I’m not able to detect all of them on a single puff. Retrohales have muted floral flavors over green pepper, barnyard, nuttiness and earthiness. The finish sees the mineral flavors from the earthiness take over before harshness enters after about 15 seconds. Flavor is full, body is full and strength is medium. Construction is similar to the second third: all three cigars have open draws, two cigars have no combustion issues, but one cigar needs a touch-up.

Final Notes

• This is a compact profile, one where there are lots of flavors that seem to be wrapped up on top of one another as opposed to spatially separated. That doesn’t mean they hit the palate in the exact same place, but there’s a lot of overlap which makes detecting the individual flavors a bit more challenging. Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving: imagine taking a small piece of everything on your plate and placing it in your mouth all at once: you’ll still taste the turkey, the gravy, the stuffing, the cranberries, etc. But it would be a lot easier to taste these things in individual bites. That’s some of what’s going on here, though not entirely.
• The one exception was the pepper seemed to be in a different place on the plate than the other core flavors. That makes sense given that, scientifically, pepper is more of a burning sensation than a flavor sensation.
• I remember, in 2010, walking into Cigar Warehouse in Plano, Texas to pick up two boxes of Liga Privada No. 9 Flying Pigs I placed on hold. I was thrilled to be able to find some boxes of Flying Pigs and lit one up later that evening. While the flavor was good, I couldn’t figure out what I didn’t like about the cigar.
• Turns out, it was the vitola. I have always found this shape to be awkward to smoke, both hold in the hand and puff on. I find the larger Feral Flying Pig vitola to be much more comfortable to smoke.
• One of the cigars had some loose seams near where the pigtail was applied. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to make a difference on the cigar was lit.
• By using the ability to sell these cigars as a carrot to get retailers to attend, Drew Estate has found a way to extend its Barn Smoker events outside the events themselves. This is an incredibly smart idea, one that will likely increase retailer participation in Barn Smoker events. I hope it continues in the future.
• If you asked me to go find a cigar that produces a ton of smoke volume, a Liga Privada is the first thing that comes to mind. While this cigar had normal levels of smoke production for an average cigar, they were well below the typical Liga Privada.
• The draws on all three cigars were on the looser side, something I have found in other Flying Pigs.
• In September 2023, Patrick Lagreid reviewed the Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Papas Fritas and found it to be a very enjoyable cigar, awarding it 93 points.
• Drew Estate advertises on halfwheel.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was right around two hours. I tried pushing one of the cigars a bit to see if that would help things, it certainly helped the combustion but came with added harshness.
• Site sponsors Atlantic Cigar Co., Cigar Hustler and Cigars Direct carry the Liga Privada H99 Connecticut Corojo Flying Pig.