CA Review Panel: Don Pepin Garcia Vegas Cubanas

Discover Don Pepin Garcia Vegas Cubanas Flavors with our Cigar Review & Video!

Don Pepin Garcia Vegas Cubanas Backstory

One of the best-kept value cigar secrets, Don Pepin Garcia’s Vegas Cubanas were first rolled in 2000 at Don Pepin’s El Rey de Los Habanos factory in Little Havana, Miami. As the blend’s popularity gained momentum, the Garcia family moved production to Nicaragua in 2017 and then in late 2023, the Nicaraguan puro line underwent a packaging and blend change.

Today, Vegas Cubanas is comprised of all-Nicaraguan Corojo recipe Now, they’re not just puros by country, but by tobacco as well.

With Don Pepin-caliber flavor on deck, Vegas Cubanas has remained popular with deal-loving smokers who want the taste of premium cigars without paying for one. We’re here to see if its flavor matches its popularity. Hang out with us and follow along as we smoke it and tell you whether to light it or leave it.

Cigar Details:

Factory: My Father Cigars S.A., Nicaragua
Size Reviewed: 6 ⅛” x 52 Imperiales
Strength: Full
Wrapper: Nicaragua Corojo Rosado
Binder: Nicaragua Corojo
Filler: Nicaragua Corojo

Construction & Draw: Firmly packed with a slightly oily wrapper and open draw.
Pre-Light & Toasting Flavors: A mix of slightly sweet and grassy notes, along with earthy, vegetal, almost doughy accents.
Key Cigar Flavors: Earth, wood, spice, sweet tobacco.
Smoke Aroma: Floral and wood.
Burn & Ash Color/Quality: Textbook burn with a stacked, dense, light grey to black ash.

Presented in boxes of 20

John’s Tasting Notes…

Summary: The opening puffs are filled with heavy charred oak, which settles its way through various levels of toastiness until it finds its footing somewhere around a molasses-like taste. An open draw means an abundance of airflow, but it’s not too airy – there’s plenty of smoke to blow. I figured that with all that heavy dark flavor at the start, that this Vegas Cubanas would burn with a ton of pepper – but it really doesn’t. Not to say it isn’t there, but it’s mellow – like the red pepper flakes you put on your pizza – compared to what you expect from the traditional Pepin cigar. The smoke leans creamy, with a whole bean coffee note; body and strength are both medium.

By the second third, the one big takeaway is a sweet bread taste. The pepper is still just a low hum in the background until the sweet spot hits about an inch before the band. That’s when earth and cedar come in, sweetness drops out, and it burns with a toasty, more powerful finish.

Solid, consistent, generally sweet – Pepin could have really cranked up the dial with some of his spicy corojo but opted to use the sweeter stuff instead. Smoke it and I bet you’ll find a lot of the highlights of Nicaraguan tobacco, without the knee-weakening power and spice.

Gary’s Tasting Notes…

Summary: Earth and spice and overall, nice…my Vegas Cubanas Imperiales opened smoothly and mostly woody. The body, somewhere between mellow and medium; the strength, medium. Earthy spice joins woody notes with a sprinkling of sweet tobacco.

Very creamy in mouthfeel and mostly medium in body at the midpoint. The flavors are well-balanced. Woody notes and earthy spice are better defined. A more evident note of sweet tobacco enters. At this point, everything is locked-in and barely deviates.

In the final inches, where the smoke is the most concentrated, the cigar remains creamy and smooth on the palate. The body creeps to medium-plus as strength remains at medium. The woody layer is still present, but soon yields to earthier flavors. With about two inches remaining, spice reemerges. Longer resting time allows the wood and sweet notes to take their last gasps, eventually leaving behind a one and one-half-inch nub.

On the whole, a very well-made cigar and a good smoke that lived-up to its advertising in terms of the creaminess, woody notes, and earthy Nicaraguan spice. I liked how it maintained its medium body for the most part, too. I remember thinking, “Good golf cigar,” or this blend could also make for a good everyday smoke.

Although I do enjoy a number of Torpedoes, I don’t really smoke a lot of them. I’m more of a Toro guy, which makes me want to compare the Imperiales to the Generosos. This new blend also reminded me a little of the Don Pepin Garcia Blue. So, if you like that cigar this new Vegas Cubanas should do it for you. It’s also a little easier on your credit card.

Paul’s Tasting Notes…

Summary: Where’s the spice? Not that I’m complaining, but the signature Pepin Garica spice is largely absent in the Vegas Cubanas. There are hints of it—a spotty spice that I liken to those cinnamon Red Hots candies—but in the first third the fire is mostly absent. In its place, however, is a profile that leans heavily on earth, salt accents, and wood notes. Overall, a creamy, lush, and mellow to medium-bodied beginning.

The second portion of the Vegas Cubanas yielded sweetness—a carryover from the creamy notes in the final part of the first third. There’s a bit more here, with red and black pepper notes popping in and out like Ritalin-riddled prairie dogs, however the main flavors are largely unchanged, albeit amplified. While flavors are rich and robust, the Vegas Cubanas remains on the mellow side of the strength spectrum.

As the Vegas Cubanas is relegated to ash in my fingertips, I’m struck by how much of an outlier this blend is when compared to the rest of the My Father/Don Pepin Garcia portfolio. To me, this cigar was a callback to blends I smoked a couple of decades ago. Before all the glamor of the cigar boom. Before cigar blenders became a household name. Back when a cigar was just a cigar and judged simply as either good or bad—without a gaggle of ‘opinioneers’ opining on its merits.

Vegas Cubanas is a cigar that’ll appeal to a broad audience. Mellow enough for a novice but with enough meat on the bone to appease full-bodied, spicy cigar fanatics. It can be enjoyed as a morning smoke with a cup of Joe or the lead-off cigar on a day where multiple will be enjoyed. Perhaps best of all, Vegas Cubanas is a Don Pepin Garcia smoke that can be had for under a ten spot—and that alone makes it worth a shot.