LA AURORA PETIT BELICOSO

What makes the La Aurora Petit Belicoso so good?

Recently, the cigar community saw the Petit Belicoso register a 90 in the Cigar Aficionado ratings. Not long ago, several aficionados reported on their smoking of this short, but rotund cigar. The results were universally outstanding. One smoker said, 'This one lives up to the CA rating.'

With this in mind, DominicanCigars.com has visited the factory and talked to the people that make the cigar to see just what they felt were the more technical reasons for this marked success.

Guillermo León H., CEO of the La Aurora operation stated that the Petit Belicoso was the lineal descendent of the earliest cigars made in their factory, which dates back to 1903. "The traditional shapes and names have fallen into disuse," said Mr. Leon, "but we have saved the blending and manufacturing techniques, and applied them to the Petit Belicoso." By this he meant the traditional 'stogie' shape as was so often seen in the hands of Edgar G. Robinson and, more often, in the comics in the maw of Brutus as he battled Popeye.

The Petit Belicoso, as all La Aurora brand cigars, has a Cameroon wrapper of silky texture. As explained by the Master Blender and Production Team Leader, the binder is from the Dominican Olor leaf, a large fragrant tobacco of the Chago Daíz variety.

While not revealing factory secrets, the Blender explained that the secret to the aromas and flavors of the cigar can be attributed to the very unique mixing of Cuban–seed/Dominican harvested tobaccos of the Seco and Ligero types added to Dominican varieties of Seco and Ligero. Of course, the fact that these tobaccos are aged for two or more 'winters' guarantees this very special product.

Finally, it was the general opinion of all the factory personnel that the exceptional rating was the result of the combination of the two types of Ligero tobacco, both of which have been submitted to the more costly "slow fermentation" process that takes, literally, years of work. Each leaf is painstakingly stacked and restacked over a period of at least 2 1/2 years. At the end of this time, it is reclassified, packed in burlap, and stored until used in the cigars.