Welcome back to the Blend of the Week. 🔥🔥

Every Monday we put one cigar under the microscope: what's in it, how it smokes, how it's been received, and whether it's worth your money. This week, the Undercrown Maduro Gran Toro: the cigar Drew Estate's own rollers blended for themselves.

Two honest notes. On strength, Drew Estate says medium-full; halfwheel's original review and most buyer reviews land at medium, so expect a cigar that reads richer than it hits. And a few retailer pages list the binder as "Connecticut, Habano, Sungrown" as if it were three leaves. It is one leaf, a Connecticut River Valley Habano grown in the sun and cured on the stalk, and Drew Estate's page is the word we go with.

By 2011 Liga Privada was the hardest premium cigar in America to find. Roughly 250 shops carried it, and Drew Estate could not simply roll more, because the leaf it needed was only available a farm at a time. As Jonathan Drew has explained, buying a whole farm's crop means taking every priming, seco and viso along with the ligero, and Liga only used part of that harvest.

The rollers had the answer sitting in front of them. They built a blend from the same farms and the same plants, taken from different primings and different vintages: where Liga reaches for a farm's ligero, Undercrown takes the viso from the same plant. Drew called it the inverse of Liga Privada. Steve Saka, then running the company, added a late harvest, weeks past the norm, so the leaf carried more starch and cured into more natural sugar.

The name is a nod to who made it: the crown belongs to Liga, and Undercrown is what the people under it built. It launched at the 2011 trade show at $7.95 a stick, built to stand on its own rather than as a junior Liga. Fifteen years on, the lineup has grown to Shade, Undercrown 10 and El Tigre Dominicano. The Maduro is still the one the others are measured against.

Flavor is personal, and we don't fake a chair we didn't sit in. Here is what this blend's makeup, and the smokers who have actually burned through it, keep pointing to.

What's in it. Mexican San Andrés is the maduro wrapper behind half the dark cigars you love, from Padrón to Tatuaje's Black Label, because it brings cocoa, earth and natural sweetness without needing a lot of strength underneath. Drew Estate's runs darker than most, close to black with some tooth. Under it is a Connecticut River Valley Habano binder, stalk-cut and stalk-cured: the whole plant is harvested at once and hung on the stalk, a slower cure that keeps more oil and sugar in the leaf and explains the shortbread note reviewers keep finding. The filler pairs Brazilian Mata Fina, the dark, sweet leaf that anchors the Liga Privada No. 9, with Nicaraguan tobacco for body. Same shelves as Liga. Different primings, different vintages, its own cigar.

How it smokes. Synthesized from published reviews plus what these leaves typically do, not a smoke we're claiming we took.

Pre-light: the wrapper smells of cocoa, coffee and something halfwheel's reviewer described as shortbread. Cold draw brings leather, chocolate and a creamy, buttery sweetness.

First third: velvety from the first puff. Cedar, leather, cocoa and a rich tobacco sweetness, with next to no pepper. The smoke output is enormous, even resting in the ashtray.

Second third: body steps up to medium and leather takes the lead, with coffee bean, cocoa, a touch of licorice and a faint pepper you'll only find on the retrohale. Cigar Aficionado's tasters add oak and a hint of vanilla here.

Final third: flavors get bolder without getting harsh. Earth, espresso and a roasted-coffee finish carry it to the nub, and reviewers are consistent that it never turns hot or bitter.

Construction: Drew Estate's calling card. Even burn, an ash that holds, and a firm, slightly snug draw on the 52 ring that a deeper cut opens right up. Budget seventy-five to ninety minutes for the Gran Toro.

How it's been received. Cigar Aficionado put the Undercrown at No. 25 on its Top 25 Cigars of 2017 with a 91, praising an oaky, leathery core finished with roasted coffee, and scored the Gran Toro itself an 89. Halfwheel's pre-release review gave the Gran Toro an 88 and called the aroma one of the most distinctive its reviewer had met. Buyers agree in volume: 287 reviews on Cigar.com averaging 4.5 out of 5 and 4.8 out of 5 on Cigars Daily, with the same theme throughout, Liga flavor at an everyday price. The one calibration: this is a medium-bodied cigar wearing a full-bodied wrapper. If you want the Liga Privada punch, the T52 is a floor up.

Pair it with. Drew Estate's own picks are a mocha latte and a mezcal joven, and both make sense: the coffee doubles the cocoa and espresso, the mezcal's smoke sits against the earth. Our move is an aged rum with dried fruit and molasses to meet the Mata Fina sweetness, or a dry stout to keep the roasted-coffee thread going. A ruby port works after dinner. Skip anything sour or heavily peated; the cigar is too polite to fight back. This is an evening cigar, the after-dinner hour and a half when you want flavor without a fight.

Who it's for. Maduro lovers who want depth without the nicotine bill, and anyone curious about Liga Privada who hasn't wanted to pay for it or hunt for it. It is also one of the best everyday box cigars in the business: consistent, forgiving, and it tastes like more than nine dollars. Who should pass: smokers who measure a cigar by how hard it hits. For you, the Undercrown 10 or Liga Privada No. 9 is the better door into this family.

Where to buy. Availability is never the problem with this one; price is. Our shop this week is Cigars Daily, where the Gran Toro box of 25 is $225.00, about $9.00 a stick and roughly 18% under MSRP. They also carry the Robusto 5 × 54 and the Coronets tin if you want to sample before committing to twenty-five.

The Undercrown Maduro Gran Toro is the cigar to buy when you want Liga Privada's tobacco without Liga Privada's price tag or waiting list. A medium-bodied maduro built by the people who roll the Liga, from the same farms, with fifteen years, a Top 25 nod and thousands of five-star reviews behind it. At nine dollars a stick by the box, it is a humidor staple, not a special occasion. Grab a five-pack, cut it a little deeper than usual, and pour the rum.

🔥 Smoked the Undercrown Maduro Gran Toro yet? Hit reply and tell us where it landed. And if there's a blend you want us to break down next week, send it our way.