Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo El Martillo

A Nicaraguan puro, created 10 years after the launch of the landmark Joya de Nicaragua Antaño blend, the new Dark Corojo—an even fuller variety— puts a different spin on the Nicaraguan classic. Note how heavily it sits in the hand. The beautifully constructed Dark Corojo is a brute, jam-packed with big boy tobaccos. The Corojo-seed wrapper is grown in Nicaragua, and has been carefully fermented to achieve its super-dark color and excessively oily sheen. The blend of Nicaraguan long-fillers contains plenty of ligero, aged three years prior to rolling. Expertly blended, it produces a bold yet bready-sweet pre-light aroma that will likely make your mouth water after just one whiff. Naturally robust but impressively smooth, the full-bodied Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo produces a creamy core of dense, deep tobacco flavors with rich notes of earth, cedar, pepper and cocoa. Look for a ton of dark, thick smoke and a slightly sweet finish. Panelists were impressed that such a muscle cigar had not a puff of harshness in the thing. A great cigar to enjoy toward the end of a grand meal with a bold Syrah.

The Nicaraguan cigar industry originated when Cuban cigar makers escaped the revolution and re-established their livelihood in Nicaragua with Cuban-seed tobacco. Blessed with dark, rich soil, their new home was ideal for tobacco cultivation and Nicaragua quickly became known for cigars that rivaled Cuban quality. Unfortunately, revolution and war came to Nicaragua in the 1980s and devastated the industry, but it’s rebounded dramatically and is once again producing tobacco considered by many to be the finest in the world.

The Esteli Valley is in many ways the heart of Nicaraguan production and is known for its very powerful and spicy tobacco. The Jalapa Valley produces arguably the finest tobacco in the country: somewhat sweeter and less intense than Esteli, but extremely complex. The tobacco of the Condega Valley is often described as a blend of the other two regions.