This feature got bumped a week, so you will actually end up seeing two "CRA Saturday" entries in a row.
Despite a couple sources claiming this was a full or medium-to-full bodied cigar, I could not remember a Diamond Crown that truly was full-bodied by today's standards, so I plunged right into this one in the late morning with some coffee. The dark Ecuadorian wrapper was impeccable, suitably oily, and had an aroma of leather and cloves. The filler and binder are Dominican and I got a clove-y, slightly orange-y aroma from the foot. The cold draw had a ice mix of orange and cocoa--unexpected and very pleasant.
Initial puffs on the Maximus revealed a thick, flavorful smoke with more body than I remember from my first encounter with this stick. There were flavors of cocoa powder and clove, along with some pepper in the retrohale and a nice, understated orange peel. Unfortunately that complexity did not hold up long and the remainder of the first third was more about earthiness and cocoa with very little of those other delightful flavors. Still very good, but a bit of a let-down after the spectacular start.
The second third was a fairly straightforward continuation of the first--good flavors with no real change. And it surprised me that the last third featured little change, either.
In all, the Maximus is a very good cigar that I would smoke regularly if its price were about half of what it is. The flavors, while not terribly complex, were very good, but "very good" just does not cut it when you get into the stratosphere of cigars prices upwards of $20 per stick.
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