So I guess the first question to answer is: why had I never smoked a Davidoff before? After all, I've been smoking cigars for most of the last 8 years; I've tried dozens of brands in that time, smoked hundreds of cigars--but never a Davidoff. Price, my friends. Davidoffs are expensive. This little bugger set me back about $14--for a "short" robusto! To which I have to say--this better be good.
Unfortunately, though, it's really not. I will grade this cigar on the scale established by anamericanfrontporch.com--because it's a good scale and very easy to remember without having to have a notebook in front of you while you're smoking.
Prelight: the appearance of this stogie is immaculate. The wrapper is flawless and the prelight aroma notes are light and inoffensive. This really is a beautiful cigar--no doubt about that. 2.0 out of 2.0
Draw and Construction: performing very, very well in this category as well. The draw is just slightly more firm that I prefer, but not out of the range of acceptable by any means. The cigar burns evenly throughout without any hot or cold spots to cause canoeing, running, or any other issues. One minor thing: the bands seem to be held on with super-glue. They are very tightly wrapped around the cigar, preventing you from sliding them off and they are actually stuck a bit to the tobacco, causing slight damage when removing. I didn't subtract anything for the overenthusiastic band application, though. 2.0 out of 2.0
Taste: Here's where this cigar starts going all wrong. When you look up mild super-premium cigars in the dictionary, there's probably a picture of a Davidoff. This is supposed to be their fullest-bodied, most flavorful cigar in the line-up, but I found it to be very mild, about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 (mildest being a 1; fullest body being 10) with creamy smoke and some slightly woody flavor notes, but nothing that stands out. The flavors reminded me very much of some of the same flavor notes on a CAO Gold or a Rocky Patel Vintage 1999--both mild Connecticut wrappered cigars (the CAO is technically Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper, but the effect is basically the same); the only thing that stood out for this one is that it had a nice finish, whereas the other two had a fairly nasty finish. 3.5 out of 5.0
Value: Only one point possible in this category, but it takes a special case to lose that point completely. This is one of those cases. There's no possible way I could see myself buying another Davidoff--the price is just too high. There are some very good mild cigars on the market where the maker doesn't ask you to sacrifice your first-born to smoke them: two to mention are the Chateau Real by Drew Estate and the Nub Connecticut. At about $4 and about $6 (brick and mortar pricing in SoCal) a stick, I would glady buy either of these long before I'll even look at another Davidoff. 0.0 out of 1.0
Total Score: 7.5 out of 10
Well, at least I got the urge to try a Davidoff out of my system!
