The Good Stuff:

The Late Hour is the newest addition to Davidoff’s highest selling Winston Churchill line. This is one of the few cigars we’ve seen Davidoff create in recent times containing barrel-aged tobacco. The Last Hour uses tobacco that has been aged for six months in Scotch singly malt whisky casks. The cigar starts out with an Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro wrapper over a Mexican San Andres Negro binder covering filler tobaccos from Dominican Republic and Nicargua. One of the Nicaraguan fillers, a Condega Viso was the specific tobacco that was aged in Speyside scotch barrels. The Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour is offered in three different sizes: Robusto (5 x 52), Toro (6 x 54), and the Churchill (7 x 48) which all come in boxes of 20 ranging between $17.50 and $20.10 a stick. I purchased a few of these over from our friends at Atlantic Cigar Company a while back, and then was gifted one by Jeremy’s sister on my birthday. I can’t remember which formats I got from where so I figured I’d mention both. Thanks Amy!

Size: 5 x 52
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro
Binder: Mexican San Andres
Filler: Dominican Republic (Olor, Piloto, San Vicente) / Nicaraguan (Condega, Esteli)
Body: Full
Strength: Medium/Full
Price: $17.50
Pairing: Prairie Artisan Ales Pirate Bomb! (Imperial Stout 14% ABV)

Note: Thanks goes out to halfwheel.com for the wrapper/binder/filler breakdown

Prelight:

The Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour starts out with a beautiful dark brown wrapper. Probably one of the darkest wrappers I’ve seen on a Davidoff off cigar. The color is semi-consistent with a good amount of darker splotches scattered throughout the cigar. The wrapper carries a good amount of tooth and grit and a stunning amount of oils which actually rubbed off a bit on my fingers as I inspecting the cigar. The wrapper feels very hard and dense while the cigar as a whole is incredibly firm and heavy. I really hope that doesn’t cause any issues as I get into the smoking experience. The wrapper carries a few mild veins as it leads up to the cigar’s round, double wrapped cap. The Late Hour is polished off with a beautiful black and gold band with elegantly showcases a silhouette of Winston Churchill himself, the Davidoff Logo, and the Winston Churchill branding as well as a secondary black band with simply states “Late Hour”.

The wrapper on the Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour gives off a whole mess of different aromas. Starting with plum, spice, oak, and mud while the foot of the cigar is much more spice-driven with backing notes of sweetness, peat, and earthiness. The cap cut like butter using my Xikar XO double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces some nice plum notes with honey, spice, oak, and moss.

First Third:

The Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour starts out with an unexpected cayenne pepper blast. Once the pepper begins to wear off I am greeted with lots of pine, moss, peat, honey, plum, cinnamon, and a bit of cocoa. I am really really digging how this cigar is starting out. The draw is perfect as each puff kicks out a desirable amount of gray smoke which dissipates rather quickly. The burn line is razor thin and wild but I haven’t had to touch it up so I’m not complaining. The ash left behind is slightly compacted and medium gray in color. It held on for about an inch before giving way.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour and the flavors I usually identify Davidoff with are really starting to come out. The cigar now leads with the peat and moss, earthiness, and oak over great splashes of spice, honey, sweetness, vanilla, and a nice little booze bite at the end of the taste. The retrohale helps reinforce the peat, spice, and booze and I am enjoying doing it quite often. I close out the second third with nothing in terms of a nicotine kick.

Finish:

Into the final third of the Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour and the flavors are still pouring it on. Leading with peat, moss, earthiness and spice backed by vanilla, honey, and a bit of a scotch kick that became more noticeable in the final third. It took me almost 2 hours to take this cigar down to the nub and I wish it would have lasted even longer. While the burn line was a bit wavy at times I never once had to touch up or relight the cigar. I experienced no harshness, not any extended heat as I closed out with a decent little kicking kick.

Overview:

I have really enjoyed the trend of more full-bodied cigars coming out of the Davidoff factory and the Late Hour tops that list. What a fantastic cigar that kept true to the Davidoff palate. The cigar is complex, yet easy smoking sticking true to it’s roots. Its rather expensive, but it’s Davidoff so that’s expected. This is a great cigar for those full-bodied smokers out there who have stayed away from Davidoff due to it being too mild for them. I would say this would have a place in my regular rotation but I just can’t do that with a $20 cigar. But this is something I’d spring for when I want something special especially around the holiday season when I’m drinking more stouts.

Pairing:

Prairie Artisan Ales is probably one of my most featured beers on Casas Fumando. For this week’s pairing I went with the Pirate Bomb which is an Imperial stout brewed with Cacao nibs, Coffee, Vanilla and Chiles aged in Rum barrels. The Tulsa, Oklahoma brewed beer comes in at a whopping 14% ABV. This stout leads with a whole ton of of sweetness, cocoa, vanilla, malt, heavy creamed coffee, and spice with a heavy mouthfeel before finishing very sweet with a good amount of booze, spice, cocoa, and vanilla with an awesome Chile flavor on the aftertaste. I love the Bomb series and I venture to say that the Pirate and Christmas bomb are probably my favorite from the bunch. Its so easy to pair these with just about and dark, sweet cigar and it showed with the Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour. The beer added some great cocoa to the cigar which was probably the only thing I thought was missing.

Giveaway Winner:

And the winner of the 3 pack of Tatuaje Michael is:

Ken Fellenstein!

Congrats! Send your address to casasfumando[@]gmail.com and I’ll get these in the mail! And a big thanks goes out to everyone who entered! Keep a look out as we have been on a roll with Fox Cigars giving away cigars like crazy so I am sure another one is right around the corner.

The post Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour + Giveaway Winner appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

Now, unless you’ve been under a rock lately, you have probably heard of the Avo line of Limited Edition cigars that are released each year to commemorate Avo Uvezian’s birthday. We’ve covered a bunch of these starting with the 80th from 2006, the LE09 Companero (83rd), the LE10 (84th) and LE12 La Trompeta (86th). Click on any of those to see their reviews.

Now thanks to our good friend Martin I get to bring you our review of the AVO LE11, 85th Annirversary! Martin was kind enough to send this all the way up north through Tony and I finally had some time to sit down, enjoy and take notes for everyone.I’ve had a couple of these before but never jotted down a full review so I figured it was time to do that.

As you might guess, the AVO 85th is to celebrate Avo’s 85th birthday and like most of the limited editions, it was restricted to only 10,000 total cigars world-wide. If you managed to be lucky enough to get a box of these, you would have a beautiful lacquered box with a giant gold “85th” printed on the front, very classy!

The Avo Limiteds have always been excellent so that leaves a lot of expectations for this cigar to live up to. I’m sitting outside today to enjoy this cigar and am really looking forward to it, so lets jump on in and see what it has to offer.

Cigar: AVO 85th Anniversary
Drink: Sleeman Honey Brown Lager
Vitola: Diademas (6.625 x 50)
Wrapper: Sun Grown Dominican
Binder: Peruvian
Filler: San Vicente and Piloto
Price: Gifted by Martin (About $18)
Burn Time: 1.5 hours

Construction:
• The two ends of the AVO 85th are tapered to almost the exact same ring gauge and the center of the cigar is perfectly even from end to end
• The cap is completed cleanly with one leaf and it blends seamlessly into the rest of the cigar
• You can’t see much of the foot due to it’s tapered nature but it looks to be very tightly packed from what I can see
• There is a soft springiness through the whole cigar
• I’m finding a few medium sized veins but nothing that looks to be a problem on this velvety smooth wrapper
• The draw is very nice even with the packed tapered foot which surprised me

Burn:
• The tiny foot on this AVO 85th lit up with ease and was evenly toasted in only a few seconds
• I usually run into a bunch of burn problems with a tapered foot like this but it seems to have burned through that section with no problems and stayed even
• I’ve had two minor touch ups as I hit the halfway point but otherwise the cigar has been burning at a nice pace and fairly straight
• A couple more minor touchups as the cigar continues to burn but nothing major to report otherwise

Smoke & Ash:
• Even with the two tapered ends I’m still getting a nice volume of smoke from each draw without needing to draw multiple times
• The ash was looking nice and clean but the tapered piece must have been a bit weaker, it fell off at about a half inch
• The next ash made it up to an inch before I tapped it off, it did look pretty fragile and flaky though
• Color of the ash is mostly light grey although there is a brownish/yellowish type of color in there too
• The ash continued to look a bit weak throughout so I kept tapping it off pretty early to avoid any messes

Tasting Notes:
• The wrapper is giving off a soft subtle sweetness in it’s aroma
• The foot is the same subtle sweetness with an added touch of cedar
• Pre-light draw on this Avo 85th brought a bunch more cedar and a bit more sweetness, add to that some light baking spices now
• Initial draws are fairly mild and starting off with some light spice and cedar flavors
• The spices are developing nicely, like nutmeg and cinnamon, nothing too strong
• Retrohale has a tiny tiny bite to it a smooth cedar finish
• The flavor is still smooth and I’m getting some creaminess sneaking in there around the halfway mark
• Starting to get a bit of a leathery taste now and the cedar is fading out a bit, spices are also shifting over to some peppery notes
• Body has picked up a bit but we’re still in the medium range here
• The The spice really picked up near the last third now, lots more pepper sneaking in
• The Avo 85th finished smooth and tastefully with a slight spice kick and cedar

Final Thoughts:
Well I have to say once again that the Avo Limited Edition did not disappoint. The 85th turned out to be another tasty experience that I would go back to try again anytime and recommend it to all. The Avo’s have a way of bringing in lots of complex flavors into a well balanced experience and it never turns out to be muddled. Just smooth creamy flavors. I would have been slightly happier with no touch-ups but they were pretty minor so I can’t knock back too many points for that. The price here will tend to scare away a few customers but that’s the case for pretty much all LE’s. If you feel like spoiling yourself and see an Avo 85th on the shelf at your local shop, just pick it up and enjoy!

Pairings:
Today I went with a simple pairing, mainly because I ran out of other stuff and it was too early in the day to jump into some Port. It is a Sleeman Honey Brown Lager. I won’t dive too far into this beer, but it does have a darn interesting history dating back to 1834 including some bootlegging and smuggling across the border. It was shut down for a long time but eventually restarted using original recipes in 1988. Sapporo Brewery of Japan bought them in 2006. The Honey Brown lagers are simple and classic with clean and crisp flavors including touches of citrus. It’s not a craft brew by any means but it’s good to have a couple in the fridge, I think I like the history of the company more though ;). As for the pairing, the beer was a little overpowered by the flavors in the Avo 85th and I think a tasty Port would have made for the perfect pairing. Coffee would have worked nicely too but it was too damn hot out here!

The post Avo LE11 85th Anniversary appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

So today I bring you the AVO 80th Anniversary cigar. The AVO brand was started by a Musician and Composer by the name of Avo Uvezian and was founded in 1988. The brand was met with open arms and soon after in 1995 the AVO brand was bought by Davidoff. Avo Uvezian remained very much a part of the company and still is. The cigars are made in the Dominican Republic in the same factory as Davidoff.

Many years ago, Avo Uvezian began releasing some special limited edition blends to celebrate his birthday. Most recently, the AVO 85th Anniversary was released. Today’s cigar marked Avo’s 80th birthday back in 2006 so it has roughly 5 years of age on it. Each of these limited editions is only released in one size, and the 80th Anniversary size was selected to be a Belicoso. Also make sure to check out Tony’s review of the AVO LE2010.

The cigar is made with a unique blend of 4 leaves in the filler. They are all from the Dominican Republic and consist of select Ligero and Seco grades of Piloto & San Vicente tobaccos. The cigar is finished with a beautiful Ecuadorian Sun-grown wrapper with a very nice shine and feel to it. What I like about this Limited Edition line by Avo is they always seem to produce a good number of cigars. So even though they are limited it’s fairly easy for the average person to grab a few and they aren’t reserved for the hardcore cigar hunters out there.

Cigar: AVO 80th Anniversary
Drink: Duchy Originals Organic Old Ruby Ale
Vitola: Belicoso (6 x 52)
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sun-Grown
Binder: Dominican Republic
Filler: Dominican Republic
Price: About $15
Burn Time: 1.5 Hours

Construction:
• The cigar is wrapper with a smooth and oily cinnamon brown tobacco leaf
• As with most tapered heads, the cap is composed of one smooth leaf that wraps around the cigar about 4 times
• The cigar is fairly even in diameter throughout with only a few smaller veins that are visible
• The firmness when squeezed offers very little give, a pretty firm cigar from end to end
• Foot appears very well packed which goes in line with the firmness I feel
• The cap clipped very clean and left me with a good draw
• The bands had a fair bit of glue on them and ended up taking a chuck of the wrapper with them

Burn:
• Toasting was nice and even and seemed to start the cigar off right
• First couple of inches are burning beautifully
• I like the fact that the cigar is staying lit without the need for me to constantly draw on it
• Going into the last third, I’m still super happy with the burn, no problems at all
• The cigar finished up with no issues at all in the burn department

Smoke & Ash:
• The first draw set the pace here with a big mouthful of smoke
• Even the resting smoke is fairly abundant
• The ash is showing to be strong and clean with a mostly white color to it
• Despite it’s strong and clean look, the ash fell off after about an inch
• Second ash had a sky diving accident and decided to take a plunge to the floor, but still held on for about an inch before falling to it’s doom
• All in all, the ash continued to stay nice and clean, just a bit weak

Tasting Notes:
• The aroma on the wrapper is mostly of sweet tobacco and cedar
• The foot offers the same tobacco sweetness aroma but adds to it some strong raw nutmeg
• The pre-light draw has a strong musty wood flavor to it with some more of the raw nutmeg spice
• Initial draws are not too exciting so far, I’m getting more of that mustiness with an interesting bit of bready flavors
• The musty flavors have sort of turned into a peat type of flavor, similar to a peaty scotch, very interesting
• The body of this cigar is in the mild-medium range so far and has a fairly dry finish
• I get more of the musty/peaty notes in the retrohale with a woodsy smooth finish
• The cigar is well balanced and smooth with a woodsy smooth finish
• There is an interesting mixture of spice making an appearance now and then, definitely some pepper and the original nutmeg
• Pushing into the last third, I’m getting some nice roasted nutty flavors mixed in the peaty and woodsy notes
• The body is also slowly creeping up on this cigar, getting to the higher end of the medium range
• The last third of the cigar is still progressing in body
• The flavors here have also intensified here with the peaty and nutty flavors being dominant and balanced nicely with the spice
• I’m also getting an odd cooling feeling after each draw, almost like a menthol but somewhat enjoyable and without the nasty taste, lol
• Smoked this down until my fingers were burning with no harshness at all

Final Thoughts:
This was an interesting cigar to say the least and I’m glad I had the chance to enjoy a few of them. It’s another cigar that I have to say had a very unique flavor profile to me. The strong peaty and musty notes is something I haven’t really had with this intensity before. Simply put, this cigar kept me interested the whole way through. The burn and ash were also superb on this cigar which gave me the chance to just sit back and enjoy the flavors(minus the one sky diving incident). The AVO 80th Anniversary is definitely something worth trying. The price is a bit high so I’m not sure I could justify a box of these, but having a few to try is worth it. It may be a profile you will love and opt for the box anyway. Although these were limited production cigar were released a few years ago I was still able to track some websites and B&M’s carrying them. So grab one and enjoy!

Pairings:
Today’s pairing is a new one I stumbled across the the liquor store the other day. It comes from Oxfordshire in the UK and is made by “Duchy Originals from Waitrose”. The company prides itself on providing various foods grown in sustainable conditions. In line with that belief, this is an Organic Old Ruby Ale. The “Old” in it’s title comes from the fact that it is made using an English barley that was first used in 1905, called “Plumage Archer”. The brew has some nice bright flavors to it, including a fair about of berries, malt and a noticeable hoppy bitterness. It’s a tasty brew and goes very well as a summer drink. It unfortunately was not the best pairing here though as I felt it was a bit light for the AVO 80th Anniversary and was overpowered by the cigar. With the peaty notes I was picking up from this cigar I’d have to say that a peaty scotch would have been an absolute perfect pairing. If not that, then something that can stand up to the bold flavors of this cigar such as a strong coffee or port.

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