If you aren’t yet familiar with Drew Estate’s Liga Privada Único series, just imagine a lab that’s set up to incubate new cigar blends, with different tobaccos, vitolas, and other elements all being tested to see what works and what doesn’t. Even expert blenders like those who work for Drew Estate go through hundreds of blends before they find the few “gems” that may be worthy of a real release… someday. Someday — because tobacco limitations, construction restrictions, or cost can easily prevent a blend from being brought to market for years. In the meantime, such blends are typically set aside at Drew Estate and may be consumed privately by company executives, although Drew Estate tries to be as egalitarian as possible in this regard; to the extent that it’s feasible, it wants its top fans to be smoking the same products as what are in the hands of the firm’s head honchos.
In 2011, the company decided to take firmer action to overcome some of the limitations that were keeping all of the “other” unique blends that were being developed for Liga Privada from being released. The company created a new Liga Privada line called Único to celebrate the exceptional character of these blends and to allow for limited-edition releases to the general public of blends that had been held back for months or even years in some cases.
The UF-13 (sometimes known as the UF-13 Dark for the coloring of its wrapper) is by many accounts the best of just over 10 Único cigars that the company has decided to bring to market. Rolled by only the most experienced torcedores at Drew Estate’s La Gran Fabrica factory in Estelí, Nicaragua, the “UF-13” stands for Único Fuerte (meaning “uniquely strong” — although the strength could properly be called medium-to-full) and 2013, the year of this stick’s release.
Robusto-sized at five and a quarter inches in length, with a 52 ring gauge, the UF-13 makes use of an oily, nearly black Connecticut Broadleaf Viso wrapper, a plantation-grown Brazilian Mata Fina binder, and Cuban-seed Honduran and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos.
With a perfect draw, dead-even burn, and voluminous smoke, the UF-13 is refreshingly flavorful and wonderfully complex. It contains pepper, dark chocolate, espresso, and tart green apple notes among its woody, earthy, nutty, and aged-leathery essences, with sweet spices in the background and on the retrohale. These well-constructed, medium-bodied sticks come in boxes of 12 and are rarely available, so if they’re in stock, don’t hesitate to get your order in!