James Suckling

Just Last Night

Posted: Jul 17, 2007 11:46am ET

I smoked a La Gloria Cubana Medaille D’Or No. 2 last night. It was the first of a box I had laying around in my cellar for the last 10 years. And it was the bomb. It was packed with decadent, almost cheesy aromas and flavors. Some might even describe it as raw meat. Anyway, it was rich and wonderful with lots of tobacco character as well that verged on cappuccino, and it finished the night off with a bang. The only thing better was the 1950 Croft I drank with it to celebrate someone’s birth year at my dinner party. I gave the La Gloria 95 points. The Port was 90 points.

The cigar actually was put in the box in 1993, which I think was a great time for Cuban cigars. Export production was very small at the time, may be as little as 30 million sticks. And the cigars, like the La Gloria, that were coming out of the Partagas factory at the time were stupendous.

I haven’t smoked any new production La Glorias in a while. But it makes me think that I should…