Cigar Review: DiFazio Connecticut

Churchill, 7.5” x 50 ring gauge, approx. $9
DiFazio Cigars was born in 2008 with a goal of creating “a new level of satisfaction for the demanding and sophisticated smoker of Premium cigars.” They have the lofty goal of becoming a “leader brand in the Premium field” covering all flavors and satisfying the most experienced palates. Their initial offerings including Connecticut, Picoso, and Maduro wrapped cigars and today I’ll be looking at the Connecticut. This cigar is made of filler from Nicaragua and Honduras, a binder from Indonesia, and a Connecticut-seed, shade-grown wrapper from Ecuador. DiFazio’s website claims this cigar is “worthy of a great leader, a great writer and especially a great smoker.” Keeping he “great leader” part in mind, I smoked the Churchill size.

The wrapper of this stick was very nice, but not flawless. There was some mottled discoloration near the foot, some stretched and wrinkled leaf in a couple places, and a huge crack near the band--most likely the result of shipping without cellophane. The color was odd, too--a golden color with almost an orange tint to it. The wrapper’s aroma as very mild with with some grassy notes; the foot had just slightly more aroma--maybe some hints of cocoa or coffee. The prelight draw was very good; I got classic mild flavors of hay as well as a pronounced sweet caramel flavor on the cold draw.

The DeFazio lit easily--almost too easily, in fact, as the foot of the wrapper got scorched in several places even though I did not get it anywhere close to the flame. Initial puffs brought out a little caramel sweetness along with hay and grass notes, but it was presenting itself so far as just a nice and flavorful, although typical, mild cigar. I enjoyed some coffee, spike with Maker’s Mark Bourbon with this “morning” cigar and it seemed to make a nice pairing. The first third pushed through with no surprises--same grassy and sweet notes that it started with mostly. Nice, but hardly noteworthy so far. Before the end of the first third I did pick up a big--just a bit--of black pepper on the retrohale.

The second third had a creamier aspect to it, along with a sweetness that changed from caramel to honey. It was not blowing me away, but seemed to very naturally pair with the strong black coffee and whiskey mix. I continued along in the firmly mild-bodied category as well, despite the website’s proclamation that it was mild-to-medium.

In the last third there were hits of pepper every now and then along with a consistently creamy, sweet smoke, but in the end, the DiFazio Connecticut end up being nothing more than a perfectly serviceable mild cigar. While it had no off-notes or bad construction, it also had nothing in the way of a “wow” factor--nothing to elevate it above the flavors of other mild cigars in the same price range. The construction was uniformly fantastic, with a great draw and straight burn line--it even burned straight and evenly through the several cracks that developed in the wrapper. A very good first cigar for the DiFazio company but lacking enough unique character to be considered one of the leading mild sticks in an increasingly crowded field.

Body: 2/10

Strength: 4/10

Complexity: 5/10

AFP Scale
Prelight: 1.5/2

Construction: 2/2

Flavor: 4/5

Value: .5/1

Total: 8/10