#4 Cigar of 2020 🏆

Save for the wrapper, La Mission L’Atelier is an arrangement of Nicaraguan tobaccos grown by the Garcia family, including a varietal in the filler known as Sancti Spiritus. The smoking experience is one of contrasts and counterbalance. For every sweet note of caramel, there’s a matching note of salt. Every nutty call has a spicy answer. After a playful back-and-forth, the lasting impression is a precise flourish of chocolate-covered almonds.

The year 1959 marked the end of the Cuban Revolution but it also led to the birth of a new premium cigar industry that invented itself outside of Cuba. Mexican wrapper around Nicaraguan tobacco is a pretty common combination, but here, it’s a creative take with an extraordinary outcome.

96 points

The experienced palate will have a field day with this blend. As every other Pete Johnson blend, the construction is flawless. No issues. I’d like to snag the bigger sizes. Even at a final smoke time of an hour or so, I could go on and on. Flavors are bountiful and I doubt I got them all. Once a cigar settles into super complexity, distilling the flavors becomes difficult. My only reservation is that because the cigar blend is an homage to vintage wines, should I have tasted wine? If there was that component, it was buried amongst the other flavors. The last comment is that there were plenty of transitions throughout the cigar experience. You may go ahead and buy some La Mission du L’Atelier now.

La Mission is truly a remarkable new cigar from the L’Atelier line. It has a great flavor, a pleasing amount of complexity and a very slow burn rate. I don’t hesitate to call this my favorite Mexican-wrapped cigar from the My Father factory and one of my favorite Mexican sticks ever. It’s simply an excellent full-bodied stick that you should try.

9.5/10