9. Don Smith Series Dee This was a 7” Churchill from the Po Boy II sampler. Slightly darker wrapper than most of the others in this set. It was firmly packed and the foot appeared completely filled. There were a couple thick, short veins and a the cap was questionable just like on the F.o.G. I smoked yesterday. It was cut unevenly and seemed to barely cover the head of the cigar. There was a ½” crack from the cap down the wrapper and a knick where a small piece of the wrapper was gone exposing the binder near the foot. The draw was very tight- almost to the stick’s detriment. On a side note- the band was amusingly long, wrapping almost completely around itself where it overlapped.

The stick began with an aged wood flavor. Sort of reminded me of an aging barrel used for alcohol. About a third of the way in I tasted pleather. That’s right, pleather. Plastic leather. Tasted like leather, but had nuances of “new plastic” to it, like when you open a cooler for the first time after buying it. Very strange, but only moderately repulsive. This went away at the halfway point and then the cigar was really quite boring the rest of the way. It did have a surprising creaminess to its passé mild tobacco flavor which made it more enjoyable.

The single best part of the cigar: The creaminess of the smoke in the second half of the cigar.
The single worst part of the cigar: Pleather. It was like having Freddy Mercury’s pants shoved in my mouth. Fortunately it was over quickly.
Overall rating on a scale of 1-10: 6.5 (The burn was decent, the flavors didn’t make me sick, nor was it wasn’t squishy and under-filled.)