Duque Churchill

Wrapper: Sumatra

Filler: Dominican 

Size: Churchill
Length: 7 
Ring Gauge: 50

Price: $1.00 Retail price: $1.00

Beverage: Diet Pepsi 

Smoking time: 60 Min.

Humidor time: 10 days 
Purchased: Po' Boy II sampler

Well it's time to get off this premium cigar kick that I've been on the last couple weeks and do what this blog is supposedly all about. For today I selected another low cost stick from the CI Po' Boy II sampler, a Churchill by Duque. CI describes this stick as; "mild in body and it sure beats a sharp stick in the eye", so let's put a flame to it and see just what we get.

Construction: At first glance this cigar is very visually appealing with it's nice shape and medium brown wrapper. After taking a closer look you can see that although the construction looks good, it is a bit off. The Sumatra wrapper looked thick enough to stop a bullet and it had more veins than average. When rolling the cigar between my fingers I discovered the other main flaws, the foot was very loose, even a bit spongy, the center was just about right, but the head was rolled rock  hard,  hard enough to get me wondering if it would affect the draw.

Pre-light: The aroma and taste from this stick was good and bad; the wrapper and the foot had a very nice nutty sweetness to it, but tasting the cap was a flavorless disappointment. Once I had punched a hole in the end, the draw did prove to be just as I expected, it was pretty tight, but the cold draw did still have the same nutty sweetness to it.

First third: Putting a flame to this stick was an easy task, it roasted up quickly and then lit evenly producing a nice sweet nutty classic tobacco aroma. The first few puffs really sent me for a loop, the main flavor was bitterly sour pepper. This odd tasted disappeared after the first few puffs, and a splash of Diet Pepsi, to be replace with a nice combination of nuts and sweet cream. Since the foot was loosely packed I wasn't surprised that the cigar produced a white flaky ash that fell at about an inch. The burn for the first third at one time was off almost 1/4 inch, but it self corrected near mid point.

Middle: By the midpoint and gnawing on the cigar for 30 minutes the draw had pretty well corrected itself, the wrapper had picked up a bit of sweetness and it was now producing loads of light blue smoke, while still maintaining its' nice creamy flavor.

End: By the end I was thinking to myself this is a pretty nice stick. It finished with the same great flavor that had shown up after the first few puffs, there were a few puffs throughout the stick that had a bit of pepper, but they were few and far between. 

Overall: For an inexpensive cigar this one was a winner. It would make another fine mild, kicking around smoke for working out in the lawn, on the car or any other activity you may have when you don't have time or want to sit down and savor an expensive premium. It really was better than a sharp stick in the eye!!