Cigar Reveal #114


S&T ID #114
Brand La Barba
Cigar Purple
Wrapper Ecuadorian Habano
Binder
Dominican Republic
Filler
Corojo, HVA Habano, and a rare varietal known as Carbonell
Retail Price $12.00
Tasting Notes
Natural Tobacco, Toast, Graham Cracker, Black Pepper, Cedar, Oak
Description There are several reasons we chose and are excited to introduce you to La Barba Purple, the first one being that there's a good chance we are introducing you to La Barba. Depending on the region, La Barba can be a difficult cigar to find in your local humidor. The word boutique has been used and used and overused to describe just about any cigar that isn't from a massive company, but La Barba has proved over the years they are truly one of the boutique brands in the business. One reason is their very limited number of releases, with just four lines since launching in 2010. Many cigar companies come out with four lines in a year! Founded by a couple guys just out of college, they say they are focused on small batch production, attention to detail, and the artisanship of premium cigars. Another reason we were eager for you to blind taste La Barba Purple: the flavor. Though it's not super complex, we found that it had flavors that were unique but also fairly easy to identify. A couple flavors that really stood out to us 
in particular were combinations of toast and graham cracker. Black pepper complimented these notes, giving us a profile that we rarely have in our blind tasting package. 
Review #1 Cigar Dojo
Review #1 Content
From start to finish, the La Barba Purple was a fantastic smoke. There might not be a crazy amount of complexity here, but the Purple has great flavor with a subtle profile of woody, nutty, and interesting spice notes that burns well enough down to the nub. La Barba, like most small operations, have the odds weighed against them. Boutique brands in the cigar industry are always coveted by die-hard smokers, but the sad reality is, our economy isn’t very friendly with them (especially with recent FDA regulations). However, Tony and Craig have a fighting chance many do not. They own their own thriving cigar shop, they have a history with the retail business, and they have an in with Robert Caldwell, the king of craft cigars at the moment. In short, if they continue blending cigars with their current ambitions and principles, they should be just fine.
Review #2 Cigar Coop
Review #2 Content

In my opinion, the La Barba Purple Robusto is one of those cigars that is best enjoyed undistracted as there were a lot of subtle flavor nuances that could be picked up with this cigar. I found the medium strength and body of this cigar meshed quite with the flavors that were produced. The La Barba Purple cigar is one that I could recommend to either a novice or experienced cigar enthusiast. As for myself, it’s certainly a cigar I’d smoke again. It’s a cigar worthy of purchasing multiples of – and it’s one worthy of a box split.