Interesting cigar brand. Traficante Cigars: La Diabla

[Wushy]

Smoked a rather interesting one tonight and was thoroughly surprised.

Cigar: La Diabla

Manufacturer: Traficante Cigars

Purchased for $9.50

Size: 4x52

Wrapper: Brazilian Cubra maduro (Cuban Seed)

Binder: Equadorian

Filler: Dominican from Santiago

Construction

Not the prettiest looking thing. A weird lumpy rustic looking pentagonal shape. Medium brown wrapper with a nice oil sheen to it. Evenly packed with a good draw. Cool metal band/tag that came with the cigar.

Prelight

Wrapper smells like licorice and the cold draw also tastes of licorice. I'm pretty sure this was transferred over from another cigar that was shipped with the La Diabla. Shouldn't be an issue once I ignite.

First Third

As I suspected, the licorice was a foreign scent from another cigar. No licorice to be found in the tasting notes. Excellent smoke output and a smooth retrohale. Tasting notes are milk coffee, chocolate, shortbread, and a hint of baking spices. Body is medium. Very nice.

Second Third

Body picks up to medium-full. The flavors from the first third have become richer with hints of graham cracker coming through. Hopefully it becomes more prominent as it smokes through. I love graham cracker in my cigars. Burn is razor sharp.

Halfway through the second third, the graham cracker develops further. The milk coffee has switched to dark coffee.

Final Third

Body stays at medium-full. No strength. Some nice honey sweetness comes in. Combines well with the dark coffee, chocolate, and shortbread flavors. As I get towards the half inch nub, the flavors become much simpler and finish out as dark chocolate and dark coffee.

Thoughts

For a 4x52 size cigar, $9.50 is not cheap in my opinion. However, this was an excellent cigar. I usually don't like the taste of Dominican cigars, but this was pretty damn delicious. Honestly, if someone gave this to me with no band and said "This is a Upmann Maduro No .1", I'd probably believe them. So much of the flavor profile just screamed Upmann to me. In short, this cigar was like smoking the last third of a Connie 1 or A with lots of chocolate laden into the flavor profile.

La Diabla? No, this is chocolate Upmann. I would recommend you folks to try this if it sounds interesting to you.

Anyone else try Traficante cigars before? I don't know if they ship outside of the US.

I'll give this a 91/100. Very enjoyable.

[Wushy]

8 minutes ago, crking3 said:

Weird


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah lol. It was the good kind of weird though.

[Islandboy]

Sounds rather delicious. Thanks.

[soothsayr]

I actually smoked this last week as well.

First of all - those dog tags - cool concept, but a bad idea how it was used. It was hard to get them off, and I ended up tearing a bit of the wrapper trying to remove it.

Construction:

It was a very well constructed cigar - consistent even burn throughout. Good draw.

Experience:

The same flavor notes the OP mentioned.  I felt that this was more closer to Full on the Medium-Full spectrum. Had to make sure I did not puff too much on it like I do sometimes. It's very potent for sure. 

I smoked it down to the last 3/4 inch. 

My ratings are simple: I'd buy and smoke this again / I'd only smoke it if someone gave it to me / I wouldn't smoke it even if I got it for free

Verdict: I'd buy and smoke this again.