Cigar Review: Davidoff Year of the Monkey

Vitola: Toro
Size: 6.5″ x 50 ring gauge
Price $34.99
Obtained From SmallBatchCigar as a review sample

Background

Today I’ll be looking at the most recent, the 7th, release of the Davidoff Chinese New Year cigars, the Year of the Monkey.  This year’s release is comprised of fillers from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Peru, a Mexican San Andres binder, with a Habano Rojiza Corte 3 wrapper from Ecuador.  They come packed in a 10 count box, which is a departure a bit from the past.  This cigar was the first one I smoked.

Prelight

You can easily tell what this cigar is by the second band, which is something I’m appreciative of since the top band is pretty ubiquitous across the Davidoff line.  The wrapper was a nice medium reddish-brown with some golden highlights to it.  It had a good amount of oils to it and a slight amount of tooth as well.  When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm and there were no soft spots.  When I put my nose to the wrapper I noted a light aroma of leather, with some barnyard coming off the foot.  I will note the cap on this cigar, it is a traditional twisted cap, which isn’t something usually found on a Davidoff cigar.  After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of wood and a light sweetness with a good draw.

Flavor

Lighting it up brought a lot of spice on the tongue and retrohale.  After a few puffs I started to get some wood, “Davidoff mushroomy flavor”, marshmallow, and graham.  About halfway though the first third the spice died down a lot and moved into the background.  The cigar starts off at medium strength.  Moving into the second third the spice had almost disappeared from the tongue but I still found it slightly on the retrohale.  The cigar did make my mouth kind of dry as well.  I noted flavors in this third mainly off wood, leather and graham with a hint of maple sweetness.   It stayed at medium strength during this third.  The spice did start to come back a bit as I got into the final third.  The flavors were pretty similar to the second third with some green herb notes thrown in.  The dryness was still there as well.  It maybe moved to medium-full strength by the end.

Construction

Other than taking a bit of doing to get it lit the construction was perfect.  The draw was perfect and the burn line was fairly straight.

Value

I know this is a very low production cigar but I would be hard pressed to pay $35 for another one.

Conclusions

It’s probably me, but I’ve never really been enamored by any of the Davidoff Chinese New Year releases.  I know other people have very much enjoyed them.  I guess they aren’t blended for my palate.  The flavors of this cigar were ones I like and there were no bad ones, but it just didn’t do much for me.  As always you’ve got to decide for yourself if this cigar is for you.  If you want to try it SmallBatchCigar.com has them in stock.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 8/10