Cigar Review: Montecristo Chicago Connoisseur Edition

Cigar: Montecristo Chicago Connoisseur Edition
Size: 6 x 50 (Toro)
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Dominican
Price: $12.00

Continuing on with the premise of finding a quality cigar made by some of the larger manufacturers from my last post, I looked through my humidor to see what would qualify next to review. As luck would have it, a cigar from a Junk Drawer Sampler from Slippery Rock Cigars hit the mark: the Montecristo Chicago Connoisseur Edition. I remember getting excited seeing this for the first time. While I have always felt the Montecristo line was a bit overpriced, all the cigars that I have smoked over the years had been great. Done as a way to honor the city of Chicago, I hoped that the Montecristo Chicago Connoisseur Edition did exactly that.

Besides a tiny part of the wrapper coming off of itself around the bottom edge of the band, I detected no construction issues. The pre-light notes were interesting, emitting a pleasant mix of wood and dried fruit notes. After the punch and light, I found the draw to be quite a bit tighter than I would have liked and with that, the smoke from the Montecristo was considerably less than normal (although a welcome change from the Gurkha Ghost). Herbal and wood notes started the flavor profile of this Montecristo. The Chicago Connoisseur Edition starts just under medium body in strength. Around the 15 minute mark, I noticed an introduction of spice into the flavors and 20 minutes after that, the spice notes increased while the herbal notes left the palette. The halfway point for this cigar was nice in that all the flavors and strength were turned up, like someone turning a nob on the proverbial cigar radio to medium-to-full bodied. Final smoking time for the cigar was 1:36.

I encountered a couple of issues with the cigar. I already spoke about the tight draw. At around the 25 minute mark, the draw tightened even further than before. After a moment of massaging around the cap opening, the draw was immediately opened up and infinitely easier to smoke. Besides one burn correction at the one hour mark, I had no other problems.

By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 5/5
Value: 0/1
Total: 8/10

To recap the Montecristo Chicago Connoisseur Edition:

• The strength and flavor profile of this cigar was fantastic and the buildup in strength was exactly what I like to see in a cigar.
• This cigar can be enjoyed by all levels of smokers. Even at the end, it does not get too strong for newer cigar smokers to enjoy.
• The drawback to this cigar is the price. As good as this is, the price would be too high for me to justify this as a regular purchased cigar. Being that it has the Montecristo namesake, I don’t foresee that ever happening.

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