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I have been looking forward to smoking the Drew Estate Undercrown Shade Suprema since it’s announcement last summer, and finall
y had my chance this week. This large perfecto is 6″ x 50-54 and uses the same molds that the old Chateau Real Gran Cru Perfecto used. I smoked a bunch of the Chateau Reals in Maduro before they were discontinued in 2010 or thereabouts. I love the format, an I actually have a couple of the Chateau Real Maduros left from the box I bought in 2010, and a Connecticut as well. So I was looking forward to smoking the Shade in this size, and I really like the Undercrown Shade anyway. I’ll start out saying I think this is the best representation of the Undercrown Shade blend to date, in my opinion! It was slightly underfilled, which was which was OK, I just needed to slow my draw so as not to overheat it, after having a few overfilled cigars this week, I appreciated the effortless draw and the abundance of smoke! The smoke was rich and creamy and loaded with the flavors I expected from the cigar. It had me wondering if we might expect a limited edition of this shape in the Maduro and Sungrown versions of the Undercrown? What the heck, how cool would a Liga Privada be in this shape? Willy? Joe has my address, I’m between jobs, I have time to sample  😁.  The Undercrown Shade Suprema is a wonderful smoke!

Editorial

It was a funny week with lots of news! One interesting controversy that arose was the Avo Unexpected line being revealed to actually be the Avo core lines repackaged on Cigar Dojo’s Smoke Night Live. I’ll admit that the Smoke Night Live show hasn’t been on my podcast playlist until now, I have too many to possibly listen to as it is. But I had to listen to this one, and I w
as rather surprised to hear four prominent members of the Davidoff team reveal this news. Important to the story is that these four cigars were positioned as limited releases with a higher price point, and then were revealed to be the exact same cigars as four of the regular production Avo line. This prompted a rather visceral response from some very prominent retailers, one with especially close ties to Avo Uvasian himself, prompting him to sell off said stock as cost. I have smoked a few Avo cigars, they are OK, not a huge fan but I don’t dislike them, and I don’t have any ties to Davidoff at all, other than the fact that they make some great cigars and have been nice to me a few times in the past. I don’t think that the marketing plan behind this was a good idea at all, and it ended up tarnishing a prestigious brand. In all honesty, the repercussions probably don’t reach the rank and file Avo c
onsumer so much as the few retailers that bought in to the Limited Editions and felt like they got burned, and maybe lost sales on something else because they had basically eight boxes taking up the shelf space where it normally would be four. Someone thought it would be clever, someone went about it the wrong way, and someone should apologize to the retailers who feel betrayed. That’s my unsolicited two cents. 

Last week when I was at BnB Cigars in Chestnut Hill, PA (which is actually within the Philadelphia city limits), Vince there implored me to sample a few of their exclusive Flor de Cesar cigars, which I’ve enjoyed in the past. I managed to smoke the “lancero” last night, and I put  “lancero” in quotes because it’s actually 7″ x 42, so it’s not really a lancero technically. It’s actually a whole four ring gauges larger than a lancero, maybe it’s a super corona, or something. Call it what you will, if you put it next to a Gordo, it’s a lancero. The Flor de Cesar line is made by James Brown at Fabrica Oveja Negra, but, in my experience, it’s very different from other cigars I’ve smoked from that factory. First, I’ll say that this format, whatever you want to call it, was very comfortable to smoke. It didn’t need quite the babying that a 38 ring lancero needs, yet it still had that elegant feel. You know I think that small ring, wrapper to filler ration bullshit is poppycock, it all has to do with combustion, so the 42 ring strikes a nice balance for me, slow draws to not over heat and it’s a nice cool smoke. I loved the flavor. This had that rare flavor of spiced hard candy that I like, I gotta get a bag of grandma candy and figure out what exactly that is, bu
t I love it and when I find it in a cigar I really dig it. I believe this was the 2019 Flor de Cesar Silver The Novin Lancero to be technically accurate, and it was delicious. I kinda want to try the Corona Gorda now! 

Well, that’s all for now, it’s coming up on Christmas all of the sudden. It’s occurring to me that I don’t have much in the vault for giveaways this year! There were a few years there were giveaways were going crazy this time of year, sadly no longer. I’ll see what I can do to put something together! Until the next time, 

CigarCraig