Cigar Review: Camacho Ditka 89 Special Edition

Cigar: Camacho Ditka 89 Special Edition
Size: 6 x 50 (Toro)
Wrapper: Dominican and Honduran
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Mexican Maduro
Price: $60.00 for a five-pack at Cigars International
Gifted to me by Slippery Rock Cigars

We’ve seen the tweets on Twitter or the similar posts on Facebook (I’m not on Facebook so I can only assume): “Retweet this for a chance to win [name of prize].” Once in awhile, I’ll see a tweet for something that peaks my interest and give it a retweet, knowing full well that the likelihood of me actually winning is low. It just so happened that Slippery Rock Cigars was running a contest for a free five-pack for their “junk drawer five-pack sampler”. And as luck would have it, I won! And by a stroke of luck, one of the cigars in this five-pack was a Camacho Ditka 89 Special Edition. Not having the pleasure of smoking one of these, I was quite excited to try this, let alone get ahold of one for free.

No construction issues were found on the cigar pre-light. The pre-light notes found were interesting: Leather and something resembling holiday spices. After my punch and light, I found what was a balanced draw with opening flavor notes of leather and a faint hint of spice. The strength of the cigar throughout the majority of the smoke is medium-to-full but it’s nothing that would share away anyone. After the first third of the cigar, the faint spice notes start to hit back a little bit. It wasn’t overpowering but they definitely moved up to the front seat of the car. The flavor points and strength stayed as they were until the last quarter where while the spice moved into the background, the leather flavors and strength increased up to full bodied. Final smoking time on the cigar was 1:19.

I think I might have relit the cigar once if that. No issues were encountered when smoking this cigar.

By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 0/1
Total: 8.5/10

To recap the Camacho Ditka 89 Special Edition:

• This is a great cigar for those who want something smooth, yet strong. While it starts out nice enough, by the end, the strength of the cigar may be a bit much for new smokers or those who can’t prefer milder sticks.
• The problem with the cigar is that it’s a celebrity-branded cigar. If it didn’t have Mike Ditka’s name on it, it wouldn’t be $12.00 a cigar (five-pack price).
• I enjoyed every bit of this cigar and I’m especially thankful I got it for free because I can almost guarantee I won’t be paying $12.00 for one. I recommend buying this cigar once if you have never had one. If I was able to find them at a better price (maybe under $10?), I would be more inclined to buy them.

Special thanks once again to Slippery Rock Cigars for the junk drawer pick-pack sampler.

One final bit of information before you stop reading: In my next blog post, I will be announcing a new contest for readers to enter. It’ll be a fun contest to announce for me and it has a a bit of participation from you all. Please watch for my blog post coming on March 20th.

As always, thank you very much for reading and I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.