Vallarta Cigar Factory

(This was originally written on reddit and at Canadian specific forum. Now cross-posted a few more places.)


Well, in my noob intro post, I mentioned that I had gone to check out the Vallarta Cigar Factory, which I read about on Reddit.

Here's what happened when I did so.

I went down there, walked around the Puerto Vallarta Malecon (boardwalk) for quite a while because the cab driver dropped me off at the North end, and the Factory is at the South end.

When I finally made it, I realized they had much more stuff there, so I took the opportunity to get some cheesecake and a Turkish Coffee. After that, it was time to hit the Humidor. Contrary to what older posts said in reviews, they no longer sell Cubans there, but only their own hand-rolled house brand (although some of their Facebook posts and reviews show they sell Cubans, so maybe this is a fairly new development). That's fine by me, that's what I was there to look at!

Now, I really should have known I'd have to make some choices.

First, they have three lines: Especiales, Mestizos, and Ultimas. All the tobacco in all of these is grown in Mexico (in San Andres, Veracruz, like all the tobacco in Mexico, I think), but the tobacco is grown from seeds that may have been brought in from other places. The Especiales uses only Mexican seed, and is the mildest of the three. The Mestizos use half Mexican seed and half Cuban seed, I believe, and they are their medium-bodied smokes. The Ultimas use I believe all Nicaraguan seed and are their full-bodied offerings.

All 3 of them are available with either a 2 year Sumatran wrapper or a 3 year old Maduro wrapper (all Mexican, of course).

They insisted (rightfully so), that I had to try one to see what I liked.

Having discussed what I had smoked in the past (those RyJ puritos and the aforementioned Te-Amo!), we thought it would be wise for me to try the Mestizo, in maduro (it just looked good to me, and was described as the kind of flavour I thought I would like). I grabbed one of their alleged Rotchild sizes (on what planet is 5.5 x 52 a Rothchild? What do I know, I'm a noob!), lit up outside (sorry, no smoking inside), and walked around the town for about an hour. That wasn't too hard, as almost everyone allowed me to smoke inside their shops (they seemed surprised that I would even ask! I even smoked inside a pharmacy, after asking, of course).

To my untrained palate, this was a delightful smoke. Not too overpowering, relaxing...

As I was finally walking back after an hour or so, a truck pulled up just outside the factory. Inside, someone called out: "Hey, what are you smoking?" I told him it was the Mestizo line. He said "That's what I'm smoking right now, but that's not usually my daily smoke."

Turns out the guy in question was Oliver, the owner! He was smoking a Mestizo for quality control, but usually smoked Ultimas. After talking to him a while, he told me I would probably be happier with the Ultimas. He said if I liked the RyJ, even in purritos, the Ultimas would certainly not be too bold or strong for me. He said even the strongest/boldest Mexican cigar was not as harsh/bold as the mildest Cuban.

I decided to trust him, and went back in, where both his sister and his son, it turns out, helped me out! Their website is vastly out of date. Despite what it says, the Ultimas are available in many sizes, not just 7x54. I settled on a box of Rothchilds (once again, allegedly!), plus another 2 out of the box so I could smoke them my last few days. With the few pounds of coffee I was buying as souvenirs as well, they ended up throwing the 2 extras for free. The price for those was 2700 pesos. At current exchange, that's $142 USD or $195 CAD. Probably not a fantastic deal for you Americans, but that's damn good for us Canucks, considering the taxes we pay on tobacco. In addition, I always like to support local businesses, wherever I am.

I personally really like these but, once again, my palate is extremely underdeveloped. Here are some pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/FiUVh

The wrappers definitely look a little "rough". Let me know if you want to see pictures of anything else, I really don't know what I'm shooting here!

A few days later, I added:

I haven't smoked one of these in almost two weeks, and smoked 3 different cigars in that time. I must say, these are still potentially my favourite. Also not sure if it's sitting with a Boveda 69%, then 65% for a while, me slowing down, or just developing a tiny bit of a palate, but these seem even smoother and tastier than before.

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet