Por Larranaga Petit Corona (Single Loose Cigar)

• Length: 130mm
• Gauge: 42
• Flavour: Mild - Medium
• Hand Rolled
• Wrapper: Corojo
• Filler: Cuban
• Long Filler
• Cuban

Por Larrañaga Petit Coronas

Por Larrañaga is one of those Cuban marques that tends to be better known by experienced Havana smokers than by casual buyers, which is rather a shame. Founded by Ignacio Larrañaga in 1834, it is among Cuba's genuinely historic cigar names and has developed a reputation for cigars at the lighter, sweeter end of the Cuban spectrum.

The Petit Coronas has long been an important part of the range. Its factory size is the Mareva, measuring 5 1/8 inches by 42 ring gauge – one of the great traditional Havana formats and, according to Habanos themselves, about as close to a standard Cuban cigar size as one gets.

It is a totally handmade, long-filler cigar, using Cuban tobacco from the celebrated Vuelta Abajo growing region. Strength sits around light to medium, so this is less about brute force and more about the distinctive sweetness for which Por Larrañaga has become known.

And sweetness really is the calling card here. Caramel and honey appear repeatedly in tasting records, accompanied by toasted tobacco, wood, coffee, baking spice and occasional creamy or nutty notes. It is an old-fashioned Cuban profile in the best sense: aromatic, relatively gentle and interesting enough that the modest dimensions never feel like a compromise.

The Mareva format should give around 30 minutes at an ordinary pace. That makes the Petit Coronas a particularly useful Havana when there simply isn't time for a Churchill, Double Corona or one of those modern cigars roughly the diameter of a drainpipe.

The cigar pictured is a single loose example, carrying Por Larrañaga's wonderfully restrained cream-and-gold band. There is little theatre about it.

Rather fittingly, there doesn't need to be.

A 129mm cigar from a marque founded in 1834 has had quite long enough to learn how to introduce itself.