I wasn't planning to write about another Year of the Horse cigar this year. I already put Davidoff's version through three sticks back in the spring and came away thinking the humidor was doing more work than the tobacco. But then a buddy at a shop off Baymeadows slid a red lacquer box across the counter and said "this is the one you should've reviewed," and I figured the least I owed the format was a fair second look. Plasencia's take on the zodiac trend turned out to be a genuinely different animal — pun very much intended.
A Crowded Trend, One Family That Actually Grows the Leaf
Zodiac releases have become their own little cottage industry the last few years — every big house wants a Year of the [Animal] box on the shelf by Lunar New Year, usually built more around the packaging than the blend. What separates Plasencia's entry is that this is a family that has grown its own tobacco in Jalapa, Estelí, and Condega for four generations. When they put out a limited edition, the wrapper isn't sourced to hit a deadline — it's leaf they've been sitting on. That matters here, because the whole cigar is a single-size 7x58 Parejo Gordo dressed in an organically grown Jalapa wrapper over Honduran and Nicaraguan long-fillers, and it smokes like a company that had the tobacco ready before anyone decided to build a horse theme around it.
The Braid Isn't Just for Show
Every stick is topped with a long, hand-braided pigtail of tobacco meant to evoke a horse's mane — and unlike some zodiac gimmicks, this one isn't glued-on decoration. Plasencia has three artisans working the braid by hand on every cigar, and you can feel the extra labor in how clean the cap sits against the wrapper leaf. It's the kind of detail that either reads as theater or as craftsmanship depending on what's in the wrapper underneath it. Here, the construction backed it up: dead-even burn across all three sticks I smoked, a draw that never needed a touch-up, and an ash that held past the two-inch mark without me babying it.
The box itself is a lacquered red-and-gold number, limited to 6,000 worldwide, and it's genuinely one of the nicer presentation boxes I've had on the shelf this year. But I've learned not to let a box do the talking — that's exactly the trap the Davidoff version fell into.
Where It Beats the Davidoff — and Where It Doesn't
The comparison is unavoidable since both brands released a Year of the Horse within months of each other, so let's just do it directly. Davidoff's version leaned on rarity and box appeal at $65 a stick and, in my notes from that review, never fully justified the price once the smoke settled — good cigar, not a $65 cigar. Plasencia's comes in at $59 a stick ($590 for the 10-count box), which isn't cheap either, but the flavor delivery here felt more proportional to the cost. Nothing about this cigar tries to overwhelm you. The pepper stays polite, the sweetness never turns into candy, and the transitions between thirds are gradual instead of abrupt. It's a cigar built around balance rather than a single showstopping note, which is either exactly what you want from an anniversary release or, if you're chasing intensity, a reason to look elsewhere.
Where it doesn't win outright: the burn and construction on the Davidoff were also excellent, and if you're buying purely for the box to sit on a shelf, Davidoff's silver humidor edges out Plasencia's lacquer box on sheer flash. This isn't a blowout in either direction — it's a case of one brand's tobacco pedigree showing up in the glass, and the other brand's marketing budget showing up in the packaging.
What to Pair With It
Given the cream-and-cocoa profile, I'd steer away from anything too hot or too sweet. A wheated bourbon in the Weller Special Reserve range works — enough caramel to meet the cigar's sweetness without piling on. If you want to lean into the floral note on the nose, a lower-proof rye like Rittenhouse 100 does something interesting against the hibiscus note I kept picking up. Skip the cask-strength stuff here; this cigar wants a drinking partner that doesn't compete with it.
Final Verdict
I went into this expecting another zodiac cash-grab and came out with one of the better limited editions I've smoked this year. Plasencia didn't need the horse theme to sell this cigar — the Jalapa wrapper and the family's four generations of growing were always going to carry it. The braid is a nice touch, the box is handsome, but the reason to buy this one is what's actually rolled inside. At $59 a stick against a $590 box of ten, it's a splurge, not an everyday smoke, but it's a splurge that delivers on what it promises. If you passed on the Davidoff earlier this year like I told you to, this is the Year of the Horse cigar actually worth the hunt.
Limited to 6,000 boxes worldwide — check current stock before this one's gone for good.