Wrapper: Mexican San Andres Maduro
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Dominican, Honduran
Size: 6 x 50 “Toro”
Body: Medium/Full
Price: $12.50

Camacho released a series of cigars to celebrate Chicago Bear football player and coach..Mike Ditka. It coincided with the ceremony to retire his number on December 9, 2013.

The Camacho web site says that a Ditka 89 Special Edition is coming soon.

The cigar only comes in one size. The Ditka 89 is the fifth of four blends in the line: The Player, The Coach, The Hall of Famer, and the Throwback. Each blend is a limited production cigar with only 2000 boxes of 20 produced.

The PR for the newly reworked blends says this stick falls in line with their new “Bold Standard” of cigars. The cigar band colors are the Bear’s colors.

Construction is excellent with a single big vein, invisible seams, a nice triple cap and a very oily dark brown wrapper. The wrapper is very smooth.

The price point matches the boldest of the bold cigars: Triple Maduro. I hope this cigar plans to show me that this isn’t just a stunt but a really good cigar. I couldn’t find anything that divulges if Ditka is getting a field goal of dollars for using his name.

I clip the cap and find aromas of earthiness, cocoa, bold spice, and cinnamon.
Time to light up.

Spiciness lands first on my palate. But so does a rich earthiness. The draw is good. There is an elusive flavor. I’ll get it…it’s cocoa but more than that. It is like chocolate cake. I get the taste of the vanilla; and saltiness of the baking powder.

A slight creaminess appears to bolster the chocolate cake experience. The char line is a tad bit wavy but nothing serious. Sweetness gives the flavor profile a boost.

Halfway through the first third, the cigar is being cagey. Flavors, while nice, are subdued without oomph. The spiciness has moved to the middle of the pack.

To be perfectly honest, I expected something like the Mayimbe by AJ Fernandez I reviewed yesterday. It is a $14.00 cigar and it came out of the gate swinging for the fences. That was an incredible cigar and worth every nickel.

And the price point, for this stick, ain’t that far behind. It should have exploded with flavor and I am wondering now if the gimmick is stronger than the cigar.

The second third begins without much change. I am beginning to think this is an old school blend. Three weeks ain’t nearly enough time so I read a few reviews of people I admire. They reported the same thing as me. And they notated a lot longer humidor time than I did.

The primary flavor is the earthiness. Everything else is a distant second. Even the spiciness is all but gone. I don’t believe this cigar was designed to be a flavor bomb. Unless it is waiting for the halfway mark or the last third. And in a $12 stick, it should have happened right away.

The strength has been nothing to write home about. It is barely medium bodied from the start.

I hit the halfway point and, again, no change except for the red pepper returns a smidgen. Other flavors begin to become stronger like the first part of the cigar. The cocoa, creaminess, sweetness, and vanilla are becoming bolder. And so is the strength, finally. It is dead center of classic medium bodied.

To say I am disappointed in this cigar is an understatement. I expect a livelier flavor profile and a richer character. This is purely a gimmick cigar.

But I still have the last third to go.

The char line has required a couple of touch ups which a double digit priced cigar shouldn’t need.
Flavors continue to get stronger.

The last third begins with a more refined body of flavors. Earthiness is still the bedrock of the profile.

The strength is still at medium body with no hints it is going to get stronger.

The giant cigar band comes off without a hitch.

What I expected to happen in the first third is now happening in the last third. The flavor profile is becoming complex. The tobacco is richer and contains a hint of balance. The finish is not very long, though.

The last third becomes the sweet spot. Flavors are blooming even though there is not a laundry list of them. In descending order: Earthiness, cocoa, sweetness, creaminess, spice, and vanilla. A dried fruit element appears but I can’t nail it.
Strength begins to move on up; just shy of medium/full.

The cigar finishes out as I hoped. Plenty flavorful. Rich and earthy. Finally well balanced with a long finish.

I am conflicted about recommending this cigar. The price point is making me reticent. Plenty of cigars in the $5-$7 range are just as good. This cigar, plainly, is nothing special.

And now for something completely different:
1975

And now, my friends, another story from my rock god past…if you read my reviews, you are rolling your eyeballs right about now as I have told way too many stories about what it was like to play big time rock n roll…so here’s another.

Normally, Curved Air headlined in all the arenas in England and Europe. But once in a while, we got to be the support act of a giant band of that time; the 1960’s-1970’s.

For one of those tours, we supported Emerson, Lake and Palmer for 4 gigs. You youngsters probably don’t know who I’m talking about. But trust me; they were an arena band that packed them in.

The first time we did sound check, on that bill, I got a wild hair. Keith Emerson had a full sized grand piano that was mechanically fixed so it would do 360 ° roll….with Keith on it. Head over heels.

The three men stood and watched our sound check. Everyone had heard of Curved Air in England and this was like the third incarnation of the band. Sort of like Steppenwolf. So I played my ass off to impress them. I played via the discipline of Stanley Clarke and the wild improv skills of Cream’s bassist: Jack Bruce. I even played the same bass as Bruce; a 1970 Gibson EBO; which I had tricked out by adding some Fender Jazz bass pickups in addition to the two humbucker pickups. Gave me a huge variety of tones.
I don’t have any good photos of me playing it so this is just a stock photo without the Fender pickups:

But I do have this photo taken in 1972 of me playing my baby:

The moment we finished, I scooted over to Keith and the boys and introduced myself. We all patted each other on the back and then down to business.

I asked Keith if I could ride the piano. He laughed and said no one had ever asked to do that in any of the support groups they had played with, so I felt honored as I climbed aboard.

To my horror, the only way you hang on is with your feet locked underneath a special bar on the bench. Nothing to hold you in place. No seat belt or harness. Just your feet and gravity.

The piano began to roll. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster. The faster it went, the easier it was to not fly off. I grabbed the keyboard like a cat. I was completely disoriented. Now I get sick on the tea cups at Disneyland.

Now I’m spinning like crazy and I’m truly scared for my life…meanwhile, Keith would actually be playing while doing it. ???? That must have required some sort of Zen calmness I didn’t possess.

After a few minutes, the piano slowed its roll and I was able to get off and then fell flat on my face on the stage from being dizzy. All of the roadies and both bands sent uproarious laughter to the rafters.

I stumbled around like a drunk and asked Keith “How in the hell do you do that while playing?”

He laughed, took me to their dressing room bathroom, where he helped me maintain my balance…. and I threw up. Score! Perfect two points directly into the toilet.

Every day we played with them, Keith would ask me, like clock-work, if I wanted to ride the piano again? All the while laughing while asking. I politely declined.

I had some Cubans that Larry Coryell, the great father of jazz fusion guitar, had given me the week before. And on the last night of playing with ELP, I asked Keith, and the boys, if they would like to join me for a smoke? They all nodded yes and we retired to Greg Lake’s posh hotel room where he allowed no one else in, but me and the boys. Greg ordered some lavish room service and we spent the night eating, drinking and smoking cigars. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: camacho, Camacho Ditka 89 Limited Edition cigar review, chicago bears, cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, mike ditka