By Tony Casas | November 13, 2017

As the weather is finally starting to cool off here I find myself out back more and more often. This time, I took a Davidoff Winston Churchill and some Prairie Artisan Ales Pirate Bomb to keep me company.

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.