Cigar Review: Undercrown Sungrown by Drew Estates

The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” is probably one that cigar smokers can easily relate to. Only one of my two local shops regularly carries Undercrown cigars, and it’s the one that I don’t venture to nearly as often. And that doesn’t count any of the recent releases (Shade or this one – Sungrown). So like many brands I don’t see very often, they are out of mind. As luck would have it, I ended up with a few from Drew Estates from the Pappy Van Winkle Tradition I ended up reviewing a few weeks back (Thank you again to Drew Estates for the cigars). The problem, however, was me sharing the cigars with my wife and a friend, leaving me with not enough to give a proper review. Fortunately for me, this particular Undercrown was not hard to hunt down at a nice deal.

The third variant of the Undercrown line, the Undercrown Sungrown was developed by the same team that created their Liga Privada line, continuing the legacy they call “Blended on the factory factory”.

No construction on the cigar I chose for review (first out of this new group). The pre-light aroma gave me a balanced blend of leather, wood and slight florals while the cold draw brought leather and straw notes. The light, following the cut on the guillotine, gave me a balanced draw with opening flavor notes of spice, leather and wood, with the spice for me being the more predominant note. At the 18 minute mark, I noticed touches of mocha enter in the profile while the others began laying back. I’ve seen varying opinions of strength for the Undercrown Sungrown; my opinion is somewhere around medium-to-full bodied. It however does not stay there. The 31 minute mark gave me stronger notes of pepper and wood while an increase in the strength of the cigar became noticeable. Over the 35 or so minutes, the flavor profile stayed as is while the strength began incrementally moving upwards towards full bodied territory. Final notes at 1:13 include leather, clove and pepper. Final smoking time was 1:17.

Besides a minor burn correction midway through the cigar, I didn’t notice any problems with the Undercrown Sungrown. The ash held tight to the cherry and not on me. All in all, the Undercrown Sungrown is what I would expect from a cigar carrying the Undercrown name.

By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10

To recap the Undercrown Sungrown by Drew Estates:

• Having smoked all three now, I think the Sungrown is probably my favorite of the three with its pleasant balance of strength and flavors.

• While this cigar does breach the full bodied mark, it starts easy enough to be considered by most ranges of cigar smokers.

• Well under $10 a cigar. Well done.

• I’ll be buying more of these after the rest of this five pack goes away.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read what I write. I always look forward to the next time I am able to share my thoughts with all of you.