Valentia Espada San Andres

Cigar making traditionally passed within families from generation to generation, often until the business is acquired by a large corporation. Less traditional entry comes from retailers or cigar lovers plunging into cigar making by having an established manufacturer produce a blend for the new operator to market. Valentia has an unusual pedigree – it was created by a weapons accessories manufacturer as a handout to customers. The cigars became popular enough for the parent company to market the cigars to the public under the Valentia brand name. At the 2014 IPCPR Valentia supplied me with their variety pack of popular cigars. This is a review of their Espada San Andres, a 6 X 56 cigar with Dominican and Nicaraguan ligero filler, a Peruvian binder, all covered by the well-known San Andres wrapper from Mexico. The cigars are made in the Dominican Republic.

The Espada was firm without any hard spots. The draw was average as was the smoke volume. I liked the appearance. The wrapper delivered sweetness but not as much as I often taste with San Andres. The flavor was peppery with oak overtones and almost no aftertaste. It took 1 hour and 10 minutes to smoke this average, medium bodied cigar and with an SRP of $11.60 is overpriced. However, Valentia offers a slightly complicated “coupon” program where 15% of the MSRP is contributed to law enforcement agencies purchase of accessories and essential gear. This slightly reduces the penalty for high pricing and I rate it a 3 out of 5.