Since I’m sitting here in the La Palina lounge next to Bill Paley, smoking cigars at 10 AM, I’m going to let Bill tell you about the new La Palina KB 2021 release—by far, the best new cigar I’ve smoked at this event. Here’s Bill’s breakdown:
I was a newbie, so I turned to Alan Rubin for help and created the El Diario line at Raicas Cubano. Six months later, I asked them to make me some petit coronas. When they arrived and I smoked the first one, it was so powerful that I couldn’t finish it. The people in my office called it the Kill Bill because it almost killed me. So they boxed it up for me and put KB on it because of the joke. It became an underground hit for people who knew cigars, so we followed it up with a second release with the same ring gauge, but longer. They’ve been in regular production for about eight years now. We decided to increase the line to a robusto and a toro, which meant reblending to take into account the larger ring gauge. The reason the KB1 was so different is because it has a double binder and a flavorful wrapper, and when it was smaller it concentrated those leaves. We readjusted and they were able to meet our expectations. It’s a fantastic cigar.
We also wanted a way to bring it back to people’s attention with rebranding. With the new box, I wanted to surprise people. Most of our branding before had been elegant, whereas this is more contemporary. I can’t deny that a lot of the inspiration came from Matt Booth’s design and other graphic novels. I’m a big graphic novel guy. The Watchman is one of my favorites.
It’s has a double binder of Criollo and Corojo, which makes it a firmer cigar. It has a strong flavor, it’s very balanced, and it’s a beautiful cigar. The balance is what sets it apart: the balance of flavor, strength, all of the matrixes in the cigar. When you don’t have balance, you lose complexity.
If you have an exciting cigar, you need an exciting presentation. During the pandemic we did a lot of fine tuning concerning the presentation of all our brands, and I think we got this one right.
-David Driscoll