Meerapfel La Estancia Exclusiva #56 (6.5×56)

The Meerapfel family has been in tobacco for over 400 years across 11 generations — longer than the United States has existed. They are the world’s most respected suppliers of African Cameroon wrapper leaf, the tobacco that dresses the Don Carlos series by Arturo Fuente and the Ashton Heritage Puro Sol. They handle Arturo Fuente’s international distribution. And sitting in their private storage for decades have been bales upon bales of Cuban tobacco, acquired during and before the embargo, some of it vintage beyond reckoning.

The La Estancia Edición Exclusiva is what happens when the Meerapfel brothers — Jeremiah and Joshua — finally decided to use it. Rolled at an undisclosed factory in Honduras and packaged in black lacquered ten-count boxes, the #56 is a 6.5×56 expression of the Edición Exclusiva blend: a silky Nicaraguan wrapper and binder encasing a filler of Nicaraguan, Dominican, and genuine aged pre-embargo Cuban tobacco in roughly equal measure. The exact proportions are a closely guarded family secret. What the cigar reveals is cedarwood, hazelnut, cream, coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, leather, and a black pepper spice that emerges in the final third — deeply elegant, balanced from first light to finish, and utterly unlike anything else in your humidor.