Review: El Primer Mundo Clase Reserva

Earlier this year, Sean Williams began shipping his newest cigar, the El Primer Mundo Clase Reserva. It debuted alongside La Hermandad, which was shown off nationally at IPCPR 2012 in July.

We covered the basics in May:

The cigar is made at El Titan de Bronze in Calle Ocho alongside the Liga Miami, but will be Primer Mundo’s first limited edition with only 1,200 boxes of 12 being made. The cigar will be a 6 x 52 Toro featuring a San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers.

Back in May, Williams tweeted the following photo of the cigars being rolled:

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And the particulars.

• Cigar Reviewed: El Primer Mundo Clase Reserva 2012
• Country of Origin: USA
• Factory: El Titan de Bronze
• Wrapper: Mexican San Andrés Maduro
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Size: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Toro
• MSRP: $12.00 (Boxes of 12, $144.00)
• Date Released: July 26, 2012 
• Number of Cigars Released: 1,200 Boxes of 12 Cigars (14,400 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 2

It’s dark, and the white bands contrast it greatly. The cap is a rough and the veins are visible, but at least the roll lines are much easier. It’s a solidly-made cigar, but it’s definitely not the cleanest El Titan de Bronze work. There is a full mixture of dark leather with touches of grassiness, manure, fruits and sweet cocoa from the Mexican wrapper. The foot presents a great mixture of lacquered woods, spices, fruits, leather, sweet cocoa and a great coffee. Cold draw has touches of sweet sugar cane, leather, grassiness, a big floral note, candy sweetness and dare I say, twang.

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The Clase Reserva begins tight with sweet cocoa notes followed by a woodsiness and big bitterness before some cocoa and toastiness comes through with some peppers. It’s slightly underwhelming as the twang that dominated the beautiful cold draw isn’t discernible and the smoke production could be better. Eventually the flavor settles to a medium-full mixture of leather, sweet cocoa, dark earth, a touch of cherries and some pepper.

As the second third nears, the flavor changes began to slow down quite a bit with the leather and sweet cocoa staying upfront as the earth begins to slowly move away. I struggle to continue to find the cherry note, but there is a slight lemon tone in the pepper-centric retrohale. Smoke production gets slightly better, although the San Andrés wrapper struggles to burn evenly. Strength-wise, the Clase Reserva is a slightly edgy medium-full.

The final third of the Primer Mundo sees the earthiness return alongside barnyard, a new harshness and grassiness. Other than that, it’s much the same of the middle portions of the Clase Reserva, although the flavors seem to be fading in varying degrees. The draw gets a bit loose towards the end, but the smoke production increases, so the trade-off is somewhat welcomed.

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Final Notes:

• The silver on white looks great in person, but it’s a pain to photograph. The contrast with the San Andrés wrapper helps to make up for it.
• This is the first limited edition for El Primer Mundo.
• Sean Williams has had a very slow and methodical distribution style. It runs totally contrary to just about every other small brands. While the cigars are not known in certain pockets of the country, even after five years, there are areas of the country where nearly every cigar smoker knows Primer Mundo.
• It’s interesting to see the materials El Titan de Bronze is working with, as things have changed a lot over the last few years.
• Strength is medium-plus to medium-full. Body peaks at medium-full. Flavor slightly from there.
• While I can’t find any record of Sean Williams saying this publicly, but there seems to be every indication there would be another version of the Clase Reserva.
• I burnt the secondary band a bit in the picture above.
• There is not a company that drops the “El” from its name more often than El Primer Mundo.
• Primer Mundo also makes the Liga Miami, which debuted in 2011, at El Titan de Bronze.
• One cigar from this review was given to halfwheel at IPCPR, another was given by a retailer.
• The cigar smokes slow. Final smoking time averaged one hour and 50 minutes.

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The Bottom Line: I will be the first one and stand up to profess the greatness that is the El Primer Mundo Rosado Oscuro (Black Label), which might be the most underrated cigar on the market in my opinion. However, nothing that Sean Williams has done since then has come close. It’s not that anything has been bad, but Epifania and Liga Miami just didn’t have the complexity and flavor I found in the Black Label. Clase Reserva is a decent cigar, with a price-tag that will likely be its biggest detraction; I’ll pick up a couple more, but I’d much rather have a Rosado Oscuro any day of the week.

Final Score: 86