La Aroma de Cuba Noblesse Viceroy Review

2026-09-28  Not Even Free · 1/4 My Money · by Eric

Filed under: Burn Issues · Cigar Bands · Figurados · Tight Draw · How to Cut · Nicaragua · Purging & Pace · The Ash · Retrohale · San Andrés · The Draw

Verdict: The La Aroma de Cuba Noblesse Viceroy is a Not Even Free (1/4) at about $19.50 street... a burn that never stayed even through four touch-ups, a draw that needed the tool twice, and a leather, earth, and burnt nuttiness profile that turned hot enough that I set it down a half inch into the final third. There was a good cigar in here for about ten minutes at the start of the second third, right after the first ash came off even. The rest of the time it was not.

Brand

La Aroma de Cuba

Line

Noblesse

Vitola

Viceroy

Size

6 1/8 x 52

Wrapper

Mexican San Andrés

Binder

Nicaraguan

Filler

Nicaraguan

Made in

Nicaragua

Factory

My Father Cigars

Street price

$17.75 to $19.75

Noblesse sits at the top of the La Aroma de Cuba line, Ashton's Nicaraguan brand made by the García family at My Father. The Viceroy is the 6 1/8 x 52 torpedo, with a Mexican San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and filler, and at close to $20 a stick it's the most expensive La Aroma de Cuba on the shelf. I reviewed the Mi Amor Magnifico from this brand back in August and it landed a Not Even Free. Same wrapper, same factory, twice the price, and this one went the same way.

The Setup

• Cigar: La Aroma de Cuba Noblesse, Viceroy (6 1/8 x 52), a torpedo with what looks like a double cap. Mexican San Andrés wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and filler, made in Nicaragua by My Father.
• Street price: about $19.50 a single online, anywhere from $17.75 to $19.75 depending on the shop.
• What I paid: around $20 at a local B&M, my own money. Right at street.
• Storage: the main humidor at 69%, about ten months of rest, give or take.
• When/where: lit up a little before 8 in the evening on the back deck. 67°F, feels-like 65, 60% humidity, no breeze at all. A very nice evening.
• Smoke time: about an hour to where I set it down. Probably an hour and twenty if you smoked the whole thing.
• Food beforehand: a bowl of Crispix cereal, a little over an hour before.
• First cigar of the day, paired with water.

Light Up and First Third

Pre-light this is a nice looking cigar. Chocolate brown wrapper, looks like a double cap, not toothy, light veining, a nicely done wrapper. No issues at all with the cut. The cold draw was good, with a very, very light sweetness and a little bit of spice on the lips from the wrapper.

On the toast and the first bite it was spicy milk chocolate with a light bitterness behind it. Once it was lit, a single draw gave leather, a spice more in the chili pepper lane, and a little bit of cream on the long finish. The retro was very mild: some chili pepper spice, some light leather, and then on the finish a creamy sweetness mixed in with the leather. Pretty good. The draw was just a bit snugger than I want it to be, and smoke production was decent, about average.

Then the burn line went jagged, and I mean jagged, within the first few minutes. It was jagged on opposite sides of the cigar, so it wasn't a rotate-the-slow-side-down situation. I cut a touch more off the torpedo to see if that changed anything. Maybe a hair. Not much.

The ash started to correct itself, and then went really weird and wavy again. About an inch in, a single draw had turned dusty, with leather and a light earth. A double draw was leather, a bit of spice, some earth, and a light bitterness in the background. The retro was black pepper, leather, and just a touch of cream on the long finish.

The ash was definitely not pretty. On one side it was all shaggy and crooked and weird, and on the other side it actually looked pretty decent. At the end of the first third I tapped it off to get the burn line even and see where it went from there.

Second Third

Right after ashing it, with the burn even, this was a different cigar. A single draw gave a light nuttiness with leather on the finish. A double draw was a roasted nuttiness, light leather, and some light earth. The retro was black pepper and then a mix of leather and cream. That profile was much better than the end of the first third, and I was hoping the burn would hold so it could stay.

The draw was still snug. The draw tool was sitting right there, but it wasn't bad enough to grab it yet.

It didn't hold. This cigar just did not want to burn even. By the middle of the second third the burn line was more than wavy and the draw was getting tighter, so I ran the PerfecDraw in, just past the teeth, about an inch into the cigar. That opened it up quite a bit. About a quarter of the cigar was burning decently slow at that point, so I touched that up too, to get it back to not even, but closer.

By the end of the second third it was decently wavy again, and the flavor was definitely not my alley. A single draw was dusty, a little bit of wet leaves, leather, and earth. A double draw was leather and earth with a burnt nuttiness at the end. The retro was black pepper, leather, and earth. From the ash you would think this was a very toothy cigar, because it looks like it on the ash, but it's not, at least not on the outside of the wrapper.

Both the primary and secondary bands came off completely clean. They were glued well to themselves, but only to themselves.

One side was at the end of the second third and the other side was about a quarter inch behind it. I knocked the ash off, it came off clean, and I touched it up again to try to get it even and see if that flavor from the start of the second third would come back. I'd been rotating it, trying to keep the slow side on the bottom, but it wasn't consistently one side that was slow, and the rotating didn't seem to make a difference. It just kept going crooked or wavy, much more than I'd like.

Final Third

It didn't come back. A single draw at the start of the final third was a burnt nuttiness, some bitterness, leather, and earth. A double draw was a very strong leather and earth mix. The retro was a mild black pepper, leather, a touch of cream, and then earthiness. The draw had gotten significantly tighter again, so I grabbed the draw tool a second time.

The draw tool fixed the draw. The burn was already crooked again, and now I was getting heat on the draw, and I don't like that. A small crack opened in the wrapper below the burn line right about then.

I put it down a quarter to maybe a half inch into the final third, depending on which side you look at, and never made it to where the crack was. The draw was pretty good at that point after the second pass with the tool. It didn't matter. A single draw, a double draw, or a retro was just hot, pretty much every draw, and combined with the flavor profile, I was done.

Strength was medium-plus, maybe a little more. Medium-full at the strongest, and I never got a full out of it.

Construction

• Wrapper: chocolate brown, light veining, not toothy, what looks like a double cap. A small crack opened below the burn line at the start of the final third. It didn't spread and didn't affect anything as far as I could tell, but I set the cigar down before the burn reached it.
• Draw: good on the cold draw, then a bit snug from the light, and it kept tightening. The PerfecDraw went in twice, once in the second third and again at the start of the final third. The second pass got it to pretty good. By then the smoke was hot.
• Burn: jagged within the first few minutes and never stayed even. I re-cut the torpedo once early on, which did next to nothing. Four touch-ups, and between them they burned close to an inch off the slow side. Rotating didn't help because the slow side kept moving. No relights.
• Ash: shaggy, crooked, and flaky on one side, decent on the other. It looked like a toothy wrapper's ash without the toothy wrapper. Tapped off at the end of the first third, knocked off clean at the end of the second.
• Smoke output: decent, about average.
• Band: both bands came off completely clean at the end of the second third, well glued to themselves and only to themselves.

Bottom Line

The first few draws were promising. Spicy milk chocolate on the light, chili pepper and leather with a creamy finish, and a mild retro that had some sweetness in it. And for a stretch at the start of the second third, right after the first ash came off and the burn was even, it was a roasted nuttiness, leather, and cream cigar that I would have been happy to keep smoking. That's the cigar somebody blended.

The cigar I actually smoked was the other one. Every time the burn went wavy, and it went wavy over and over, the flavor went with it: dusty, wet leaves, leather, earth, and a burnt nuttiness, with black pepper on the retro and a bitterness in the background. Four touch-ups, two passes with the draw tool, and an extra cut couldn't hold it even long enough for the good version to stay. By the final third it was hot on every draw, and there's no reason to keep smoking a hot, leather-and-earth cigar I'm not enjoying. At close to $20 that's not a Hand-Me-One. I'd rather smoke nothing.

Would I smoke it again? No... a Not Even Free (1/4). Even ignoring the price, the burn never behaved and the flavor spent most of the hour in a dusty, earthy, leathery lane that isn't mine. At $19.50 there is no version of this I'd reach for. This is also my second Not Even Free from La Aroma de Cuba's San Andrés cigars in two months.

Best for: someone who wants a full-flavored leather and earth cigar and doesn't mind working on the burn. If that's you, buy one, not five. It's not a cigar I'd hand to anybody.

My scale, one question only... would I spend my own money on this again? 4 Box Buy (box on hand, always) / 3 Five-Pack (yes, a few live in the humidor) / 2 Hand-Me-One (wouldn't buy it, wouldn't turn one down) / 1 Not Even Free (I'd rather smoke nothing).

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