Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
Binder: Ecuadorian Habano
Filler: Peruvian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Ecuadorian
Size: 5.2 x 55 Wide Churchill
Strength: Medium/Full
Price: $20.00
Factory: Tabacos de Costa Rica

BACKGROUND:
From Casdagli Cigars:
“Casdagli Cigars enters the crypto world in partnerhip with The Blockchainsmoker, an NFT membership cigar club for exclusive access to crypto themed premium cigars, incubated by leading Cardano NFT project: The Ape Society.

“Through the incubator program ‘The Factory’ from The Ape Society, The Blockchainsmoker will this year, with a target date of March, launch their NFT collection to exclusively serve those with passion for both Blockchain technology and very special, high-quality cigars. Through NFTs on the Cardano network, The Blockchainsmoker club will launch instantly collectible cigars from many different brands. Each brand will produce these cigars exclusively as one-off limited editions for the cigar club, the first one coming from Casdagli Cigars. Upon launch, it will be the world’s first cigar club that exclusively offers cigars tailored to the crypto space.”

The website goes on and on describing the wonders of NFT’s and crypto while never addressing anything about the blend itself. It does provide a link to the Blockchainsmoker club. But when I clicked on it, the website is no longer up and running.

There is a video introducing the founders of the club on YouTube. It was posted 3 years ago and has received 106 views with zero comments.

There is little information as to when the cigar was actually released. The info regarding the release happened in February 2023. There are no reviews of the cigar. Is this a cigar with three years of aging after rolling with three years of box aging? I have no idea. Jeremy Casdagli won’t return my request for information. More on that later.

THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
Aged three years (or is it 6 years?). They must be ready to go.

Casdagli was a forerunner of leaf stats in this blend design. Now, you can barely fling a cat without hitting dozens of similar blends. It has become the flavor of the year. I’ve been a fan of this style for 13 years when Jeremy stood alone in this sphere.

The outcome is that I’m a sucker for anything resembling this style. Unfortunately, the grand majority of similar blends are not cheap. And I like cheap.

It’s very clever using the Wide Churchill size and name. My top 25 list of 2025 saw the number one pick as the Cuban Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill. An exquisite cigar blend that has few peers. So, how does the Casdagli do? Let’s see.

It surely smells good (Cue Det. Lt. Frank Drebin). Extremely floral with smaller notes of baking spices, saltless caramel, vanilla, malt, oak, earthiness, and milk chocolate.

My PerfecPunch plows into the cap like the Dewey Decimal System at a Congressional Inquest into Illiteracy. The cold draw is baking spices, leather, earthiness, milk chocolate, oak, malt, vanilla, and caramel without salt. Wait…and floral.

Very perfumy at light up. Almost cartoonishly overwhelming. The draw is tight but not without the ability to be overcome by the use of my PerfecDraw.

The floral is ridiculous. I’ve smoked everything that Jeremy has produced and this blend is like sparking a J made up of The White Widow which is a strain whose aromata is that of flowers, pine thistles, and earthiness. I can almost taste the sap droplets.

Heat plumps the cigar like a cantor running from a hog at a KKK celebration. A slow roll lay before me. My life lay behind me, but any good taxman will argue the opposite.

The draw is fakakta. I grab my PerfecDraw and put it to work. The tool takes several stabs and drags out half of the Jersey shore but now it’s better and my chest doesn’t heave like I’m on my back holding a thick pane of glass while a strange woman deposits a ca ca pee pee poo poo.

The blend settles and the sweetness of the leaf moves in an irregular pattern while the earthiness stands front and center.

I’ve known Jeremy Casdagli for 13 years. I’ve reviewed dozens of his blends. I doubt anyone else has provided a more positive reflection of his cigars. His website shows most of my reviews. He sponsored my blog for more than half those years, but we had a falling out 18 months ago. I thought it was me but after speaking with several people who know him, it turns out something was amiss. There were promises made that never came to fruition. Plus, he had issues with his American rep that turned very ugly. I received countless emails from Casdagli explaining, and what he described was awful.

The blend is very good, but it is becoming run of the mill for cigar blends using a similar design and price point. I’ve been here a hundred times. If I were to blind taste it, I would not be able to call this out as a Casdagli blend.

On the upside, it burns at the speed of a melting but stalwart glacier.

The burn gets wonky.

The cigar goes out.

I’m closing in at the end of the first half. The cigar is decent but ordinary. What a disappointment. I expect more from Jeremy.

It’s a shame that the only youthful reminder of my music happens on that damn Curved Air Live album. I have boxes and drawers full of recordings and vinyl. But I’m lazy. What a pain it would be to convert some, or all, to digital. I have projects waiting in which my best show-off stuff await my attentions. As I now have a deadline of the end of 2026 as the katman, maybe I’ll get it done.

I’m thinking of the Dion song, “The Wanderer” when I consider the Blockchain blend. Like the song’s title, it goes nowhere fast. Roaming from town to town with no apparent destination. This review should put the nail in the coffin of Casdagli being my friend.

Daughters of the Wind by Casdagli is my favorite blend. His Pony release is fantastic and only around $11 per stick. Unfortunately, they are not easy to find. My suggestion is that if you find them, buy every stick. They are the best morning cigars I’ve tasted.

Flavors are creamy, sweet with a touch of savory, oak, malt, caramel, and floral. For $20, I need transitional quality, depth of field, complexity, richness, and extreme earthiness. The Blockchain has none of this.

I get the sense that the blend wants to do better but doesn’t have the impetus or enthusiasm to do so.

The cigar has trouble staying lit. My Humidimeter showed 61% after a day of dry boxing. It was good to go.

The cigar has several years of aging, so I wonder if it aged out. Some cigars don’t take kindly to long rest while others do very well. It’s a crap shoot for any blender.

I love Casdagli blends, but the Blockchain was a swing and a miss.

RATING: 84

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: casdagli cigars, Casdagli The BlockchainSmoker | Cigar Reviews by the Katman, cigar reviews, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, katman, phil kohn