The Exclusivo is a special liga I created to be the ultimate expression of my love for all Nicaraguan tripas. It is a complex smoke featuring filler tobaccos from all four primary growing regions: Jalapa, Condega, Ometepe and Esteli. Each is bale aged a minimum of 5 years. It takes the smoker from a silky-smooth beginning of sweet cedar and cinnamon and builds to a medium bodied smoke with the texture of creme brûlée laced with a soft pepper. It is a very intricate blend that rewards the smoker with balance and nuance.

The Nacatamale is the second frontmark in the line. What made this cigar a unique blending challenge was I went “viejo granja” style with it. For over a century most cigars’ entire filler recipes were comprised of just ONE farm’s tobacco and any complexity was introduced by extremely careful leaf processing, selection and positioning within the bunch. Whereas these days we have hundreds of ingredients to work and blend with to create interesting and satisfying ligas. So the challenge was to see if I could make an “old farm” style liga that could hold its own with the modern blends created today. Albeit not the most complex of ligas, it is exceptionally flavorful with a really satisfying spice and tantalizing finish. That Nacatamale is one of my personal favorite cigars.

The #NLMTHA Lancero was one of my toughest challenges given that I am very vocal in my lack of appreciation for the lancero format. As a ligador, I have never had a lancero that I didn’t feel I could make better if I were to blend the same in a slightly wider format. Plus there are the inherent and arduous factory challenges to ensure the draw is ideal in such a long, skinny vitola. And finally there is the blunt fact that there is a very limited market for lanceros. All that being said, the success of the last lancero I blended, the L40, has left me inundated with requests for years from “cigar geeks” requesting I create another of these pencil shaped smokes. So here it is… Elegant, sophisticated and refined.

The “Unstolen Valor” is not like any of the previous Muestra de Saka ligas as I did not create it, rather it is the work product of Sr. Raul Disla, Master Cigar Maker at NACSA, resulting from a personal challenge I issued him a few years ago to create a “personal liga”. I find this blend to be a journey of spice – peppercorns to be precise. It begins with the subtle aromatic tastes of the green peppercorn with that fresh, tangy back note followed by the flavors of the more potent, complex and pungent Tellicherry black pepper berry to finally finish with the more piquant, racier notes exhibited within white peppercorns. Spicy cigars are rather common, but what impressed my palate is how fluid the transitions occur plus how he managed to tame their biting nature that not only allows the smoker to detect these distinctly different pepper notes, but to also never overwhelm the smoker’s palate with sharpness. Simultaneously the blend offers a harmonious cedar-like sweetness that I found captivating. It is a very deft, balanced execution of style of cigar that is often done a great disservice by most makers.

“The Bewitched” is an intoxicating liga of choice Nicaraguan and US Grown fillers with our exclusive Cultivo Tonto San Andreas Negro binder swaddled in a Grade 1 Ecuador Habano Seed capa. Presented in a beautiful 6 5/8 x 48 prensado vitola with a spiral colita, this cigar rewards the smoker with a beguiling smoking experience with notes of cafe, caramel, cedar, and tempered spice. It is truly an entrancing medium-plus bodied smoke, so hard to describe, yet so perfect in balance and nuance, from the moment I finished it I was mesmerized with it. Originally created as a liga to celebrate the Owl Shop of Worcester’s 75th Anniversary, it was simply too spellbinding a blend to not make available to all of our Select Purveyors.

Krakatoa is a robust liga of select Nicaraguan Grown Broadleaf, Cuban Seed Criollo and a potent Corojo ligero tripa recipe bound with a Nicaraguan Sungrown capote and wrapped in a beautiful choice Grade A1 Ecuador Habano Seed capa leaf. Presented in an expertly crafted 6.00 x 48 parejo with a unique “volcano” spiral colita, this is a very elegant vitola. This puro’s liga was truly agonized over and took well over three years to perfect. Delectably sweet and spicy on the palate, it is a refined, yet an explosion of flavor that is sure to satisfy even the most experienced connoisseur. For those doubtful of its strength, we suggest they afford it a few retrohales along their smoking journey.