Thursday, August 11, 2011


Don Kiki Brown Label Churchill
Size: 7 x 52
Tobacco: Nicaraguan puro (sun-grown criollo wrapper)
Price: $4.80


Some cigars you love at first puff, but then quickly tire of. Other cigars underwhelm you at first, but then grow on you over time. Don Kiki Brown Label fits into this second category.

The cigar features a dark toothy sungrown wrapper. The aroma is rich and heady. The cigar itself is full-bodied and heavy, but it doesn’t showcase a lot of pepper/spice flavors. The aftertaste lacks bite and leaves you feeling that the smoke doesn’t have any umphh to it.

But over time, as I smoked my way through a box on hot summer nights, I began to appreciate a subtle complexity: rich, hearty aromas and flavors, reminiscent of both CI Legends White Label (Camacho) and Padron 2000 maduro. This cigar smokes cool and very slow: in fact, it was not uncommon for this cigar to last 3 hours or more. I rarely was able to finish one to the nub.

Construction was a consistent problem, though. I’ve smoked about 15 of these cigars and all but one have required at least a single (usually more) touch-up with the lighter. These cigars are prone to go out while you are smoking, and if you ever set one down for more than two minutes—-forget about it keeping its cherry. Some of the cigars were rolled very loosely, which may explain part of the problem.
But, even with the construction problems, I will consider purchasing this cigar again, probably in a shorter vitola. Cuban Crafters often puts them on sale for around $2.50.

Update 5/15/2014: I smoked my last Don Kiki Brown Label from the Lost Sticks Tray two nights ago.  It had been aging in my humidor for 5 years, 2 months.  I paired it with Auchentoshan 12-year scotch.  This cigar lasted over two hours and was stronger than I remember; in fact, I couldn't quite finish it.  Great flavors as always, but construction was still a problem as this one had a tight draw all the way through and needed relights.  As I mentioned in my 2011 review, I want to try this cigar again in a smaller vitola.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.