Wrapper: Ecuadorian
Binder: Mexican
Filler: Dominican, Nicaraguan
Size: 7 x 48 Churchill
Strength: Medium
Price: $49.00
Released: January 2025
Quantity Released: 18,000 Boxes of 10
My two cigars received 3 months of naked humidor time.
THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
For a $50 stick, it is unremarkable looking. But it is solid and hefty. It is packed like a whore house on free anal night.
Wrapper aromas are faint at best with notes of floral, freshly cut grapefruit, spicy peppers, fresh black coffee, and salted caramel.
My PerfecPunch creates a magnitudinous large nostril in the cigar’s cap. Airflow is better than decent.
Cold draw is made up of fennel seeds, milk chocolate, black pepper, sugary cake, and honey bunnies.
My hands quiver as I light this log of solitude. Normally, it is only a spasm but I took my meds and they seem to have kicked in.
Nice start. Grape jelly, honey almonds, aged oak, coffee, and extremely earthy. Bon appétit to me.
The burn is straight as an arrow. And I can tell that the money is right where it should be…in the cigar’s blend and not the marketing budget. I am rarely impressed by Davidoff because it is just too expensive to dabble in their products. We can’t afford to spend this kind of money never knowing if the outcome is better than 50/50. Despite being fabulously wealthy, I’m not stupid.
Davidoff describes the first inches as full of caramel, nuts, and nougat. Damn straight. I guess when you throw 180,000 cigars into the wild, you better hope it is a consistent blend.
HW did a semi-evisceration of this cigar back in March. I chose not to read the review but rather to scroll to the rating like everyone does, skipping important content. I saw a photo and complaints about a bad burn in all three cigars. Yikes.
And just like that, the foot goes Bozo crazy with a bad burn. Damn. Do I fix it or hope that it self corrects? I put torch to foot.
Fortunately, the cigar is delicious. At this early juncture, it reminds me of the more reasonably priced Avowed The Vow: Higher Calling ($20) from Andrew Considine and Dave West.
While the flavorful start is warming my cockles, it will need to head into soldier of fortune territory soon.
I check the humidity with my Humidimeter and it is a perfect 70%. Therefore, combustion issues cannot be blamed on too moist or too dry conditions. And since I’m not aware of how accurate this tool is, I must proceed on trust.
I smoked one of my sticks a month ago and it did not have a char line issue or combustion problems.
The blend is mildly complex with the refined qualities I expect from a crazy priced cigar. Transitions are slight in this early phase. I am sending psychic signals to the cigar to hurry up and develop and not be a girly man.
Just like that, the cigar improves exponentially in the second inch. Now we’re talking. I am tempted to read the only review I found. Since it was mostly a thumbs down, I restrain myself.
It’s very bready and earthy. The honey sweetness continues. Nice.
There are solid reasons why no one blind reviews $50 cigars. Why would anyone spend $150 on three cigars to entertain (and I use that word loosely) smokers for a few minutes? Only schmucks like me and HW dare.
I need a rock n roll story. Lemme think. I’ll be with you shortly…take a pee break.
I got one. Rehearsal for the Curved Air reunion tour was minimal since no one liked each other. We’d play the intro and outro a few times and that was it. It was up to me to learn the songs on my record player. Since I had no idea that they were a major band, I thought our first gig in London was a club. I had no experience playing in front of thousands of cheering fans. I brought a music stand with my handwritten charts to goose me if needed. When I saw the huge auditorium and the huger stage, I tossed the music stand aside. I winged it but it turned out OK as no one noticed my clams. When the gig finished, I walked back out onto the stage and sat on the edge of the proscenium with my feet dangling. I wanted to take it all in as the contestants filtered out. Throngs came up to me to talk. It was the first time I was asked to sign autographs. I was overwhelmed. But since we had a chick as lead singer, the multitudes were mostly young men. Dang me.
Inch three begins and so far, so good. The burn issue subsided. The draw is on the money. Davidoff describes coffee, nuts, and pepper in the second third. Those are bare bone descriptives. In addition, I taste brioche bread, floral honey, butter cookies, peaches, and rich earthiness.
Men, there is nothing wrong with using a flavor wheel when you smoke a cigar. It alerts our reptilian brains that there are things we might be obscuring from the big picture. I often use the Famous Smoke deity which you will find here.
This is a very breathy blend. By that, I mean it fills my ginormous cavities with an airy posture of flavors, luminous sensuality, and big aromas.
And the burn reverts to its evil self. Damn. If I was flush enough to blind taste this cigar, I’d be an unpleasant bloke.
During that first tour, one of the band leaders would do an excruciatingly long 5-minute violin solo. The man used every foot pedal at the expense of the audience, who loved it. We’d exit the stage and smoke us some hashish to get in the mood for our return. One night, I knocked my tuning pegs out of kilter when I placed my bass on top of my amp. On our return, every note I played was wrong. Francis Monkman came over to me and yelled out the chords. I screamed back that I was playing those notes. It was only a few beats before I realized my stupidity and I fixed the tuning on the bass while playing. Of course, there was a rock journalist in the crowd, and he wrote that Francis had to teach me the song while we played. So humiliating.
The caramel overtones are the blend’s baseline. It tastes very much like a Kelner blend. Again, the Avowed Higher Calling does it better and is less than half the Davidoff’s price tag.
Strength is called out as medium, but it turns out that was only for the first third. It is in full tilt medium/full domain now.
The funny thing about the violin player was he had no idea how to improvise during solos. He would play classical scales ad nauseum. He was no Jerry Goodman (Mahavishnu Orchestra) or Jean Luc Ponty. I’d try to teach him, but I was considered a lesser being who didn’t know what he was talking about.
The first half was fine. Not great. Just pretty good. Not exactly a shining example of blending for the sophisticated masses.
It was the early 80’s. U2 was making their Los Angeles debut at the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Blvd. A radio DJ friend and I were in attendance. I stood at the foot of the stage and listened. I waved my hand and told my buddy that these guys were going nowhere. We went backstage and I met John Belushi. He was there with his father. Belushi was wearing a nice suit that made him look like a sane person. We spoke for a bit and you’d never know he was a crazy comic. My friend and I went into the band’s dressing room to do a couple of toots. Belushi followed us. While my friend and I did reasonably sized lines, John said to me, “Are you saving it for someone?” He grabbed the gram bottle and dumped it onto the sink. He damn near did it all. We stood there expecting a full aneurysm, but he just smiled at us and said thanks.
Inches four and five are not as good as earlier gyrations. Still, a very good cigar but I anticipated a stronger profile. I see into my crystal ball and watch as rich guys gather at their favorite club smoking these cigars while praising it to high heaven.
In its last death throes, the cigar looks up at me with its tiny eyes and asks for my blessing. I tell it that more pronounced transitions would have been a godsend. It looks disappointed. Since I am not a professional reviewer, I can’t ignore that I demand my money’s worth. Will the cigar do better with extended humidor time? Definitely.
This was an excellent cigar but it never reached stellar quality. You can purchase the Davidoff Winston Churchill Limited Edition 2025 from sponsor Small Batch Cigar. Take 10% off with promo code KATMAN. But If you’re going to spend half a C note on a Davidoff, I highly recommend the Davidoff Maxamar 25th Anniversary Exclusive that I rated 96 and can be purchased from Small Batch Cigar. Take 10% off with promo code KATMAN. Even better is the sensibly priced, super excellent cigar Avowed The Vow: Higher Calling ($20). I rated it 97. You can purchase this cigar from Small Batch Cigar.
RATING: 93
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Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS
