This Bolivar is the thinnest regional edition so far and is made for the German market. It has a ring of 38 and is 192 millimeter long. The wrapper is light brown and somewhat rough with a few veins. The cigar has a typical Cuban aroma. The construction feels quite firm what is causing a bit hard predraw that gives me a mild peppery flavor.

The first flavor I get is a full flavored typical Cuban leather flavor with a hint of pepper. The fullness of the flavor decreases a bit but there comes a herbal flavor in return.

Midway the leather is the dominant flavor again but that’s only the case for a short time, then it’s back to herbal time again with some nuts on the background. Near the end the cigar becomes a bit spicier and the nut flavor gains a bit in power.

I get enough smoke, but the smoke is quite thin. The draw is a bit hard and the ash is firm but dark colored. The burn is straight, no complaints in that department. I would call the cigar, at this stage of its development medium bodied and flavored.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, but then I will rest them for a few years.
Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10

The petit belicoso has a nice sharp looking point with a nice light brown colored wrapper. The cigar feels hard, but isn’t over packed as the predraw is a bit loose. The predraw leaves a wood and raisin flavor in my mouth. The aroma of the cigar is hard to detect and smells a bit like cow poop.

Yuck, I taste a bitter, pungent and unpleasant coffee flavor. After a centimeter the worst harshness has gone, but I still get a harsh flavor in the back of my throat. After an inch some wood shines through the bitter harshness, but unfortunately some ash flavor joins the party too.

After reaching the middle of the cigar I lost the wood and ash and I can even taste some nuts beneath the harshness. At the 2/3rd point the harshness gets less but the cigar still isn’t pleasant to smoke

The as is almost white and very dense. The ash broke halfway and I got some crooked burn after that, which I didn’t have to correct though. Before the breaking of the ash the burn was straight. The draw was fine. I get a lot of thick white smoke. This cigar is obviously way too young to be smoked.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, and rest them for at least 5 years before I smoke another one. Hopefully they are great by then and otherwise I will give them away.

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 4 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 5 / 10
Aroma (last part) 5 / 10

The cigar has an interesting silver foil wrapping on from the head of the cigar till the mid section, where a red, white, blue band with the fleur-de-lis that Pete Johnson likes to use covers the end of the foil. The foil is also based on the old Cuban style foil-wrapped figurados.

The Nicaraguan corojo wrapper is oily and has some veins running over it. The aroma of the cigar reminds me of straw and hay, but has a little sourish smell to it. Upon inspection I cannot find anything wrong with the construction, and the perfect predraw supports the idea that the construction is flawless. The predraw leaves a mild peppery raisin flavor on my palate.

I am surprised by the leathery flavor with the earthy notes and the hint of coffee. The flavors are quite full, bold and very pleasant. A little herbal flavor joins the other flavors and everything is perfectly balanced.
After 2 inch the earthy flavor is gone. The cigar starts to reveal its complexity and it is getting harder to recognize and name the flavors I can taste. The flavors are still full, but mellowed out and they become mild creamy.

Halfway a wood flavor joins the herbal taste and a mild pepper. I also get a fresh flavor, but it isn’t a minty freshness. It is a kind of freshness that I can’t explain. At the 2/3rd mark the cigar becomes a bit more spicy and I can also taste a nut flavor. The herbal flavor grows in strength and the main support flavor is wood.

The cigar produces a lot of thick white smoke and the draw is flawless. The
smoke starts out cool because of the length of the cigar. The ash has a beautiful light color and is pretty firm. I had a bit of a crooked burn in the beginning but I blame that on myself and not the cigar as it always happens to me with perfecto shaped cigars. The cigar is full flavored and medium bodied, but complex and interesting. It lasted for over 2 hours, and I wouldn’t have mind if it lasted 2 more.

Would I buy this cigar again? Without hesitation. This is the best cigar I have ever smoked.

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 9 / 10
Draw: 9 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Aroma (first part) 9 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 9 / 10
Aroma (last part) 9 / 10

This cigar is a looker too, with just a small band at the foot to recognize the blend, but no big band where you would expect it. This cigar has to sell itself and it does quite well with the very dark, smooth and oily wrapper. The wrapper has a silky feel to it and feels well constructed. The cigar has a distinct aroma that reminded me of the horse stables where my sister was riding horses when she was a kid. The predraw gave me the right resistance and left a peppery chocolate with raisin flavor on my palate.

I get a sense of coffee, mild bitter and a light chocolate flavor on the background. The flavors are quite full. The chocolate flavor slowly grows in strength but the coffee is still the dominant flavor. The coffee loses some of its strength after an inch, the bitterness disappeared and the chocolate becomes a bit sweet. Half an inch later I taste a pleasant flavor which I cannot describe as I didn’t recognize it.

A bit later I get some of the coffee and chocolate again and halfway some wood and hay accompany the coffee and chocolate. The last flavors disappear and a hard to describe dry hay flavors replaces them. As this flavor fades away I get some of the mild bitter coffee again, just like at the beginning which is replaced by cedar towards the end of the cigar.

The draw is a bit on the light side but not too much to bother me. I get a lot of smoke, which is quite thin. The smoke is a bit gray but turns white the further the cigar progresses. I get enough smoke to blow smoke rings, which I like. The ash is a bit dark but firm, it grew to 4 inch before it decided that my shirt was a nice spot to drop on. The burn is phenomenal, razor sharp and the cigar doesn’t die easy. I would rate this cigar medium/full flavored and medium bodied.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, I put it on my “have to get a box of these” list.

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 9 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 7 / 10

2 days after I got it, my dad comes over, decides to take a closer look at it. He didn’t know it was a twist mechanism and pulls on the puncher. He didn’t even pull hard, but the plastic in the mechanism breaks.

I asked Michael (Volt) to get in touch with the dealer to see if there was warrenty, and the answer from Davidoff was no. They even had the nerve to ask if he needed to know the nearest Davidoff dealer. What were they thinking? That I’m gonna spend money on a company with such a crap customerservice?

FUCK Davidoff & Avo. I have some Avo cigars in my collection, they will be bombing material, I refuse to smoke them anymore.

The packing is quite nice, I really like the band with the old style map. The cigar is wrapped in cedar that has a band on the foot and the cigar and cedar are packed in cellophane. The predraw is fine and the construction feels good. The cigar has a dry grass aroma.

I taste a mild acidy kind of coffee with a mild sweetness to it. The strange sweet flavor keeps noticeable until I reach the mid of the cigar. There is also a musty feeling to the flavor. At the 2/3rd point the cigar gets a bit bitter.

I had a bit of a crooked burn. The smoke is a bit thin and there is not a lot of it. The ash is light colored and firm. They claim this cigar is medium bodied and they are right, but they don’t advertise that it is mild flavored.

Would I buy this cigar again? Nah, there are better cheap sticks out there

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 6 / 10
Burn: 6 / 10
Aroma (first part) 6 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 6 / 10
Aroma (last part) 5 / 10

I taste a full coffee flavor with a mild but enjoyable bitter taste to it and after half an inch I also get some chocolate, but the mild bitter coffee is still the main flavor and the chocolate disappears quickly. After a while the flavor goes stronger and the chocolate reappears and is quite sticky, it sticks in my mouth.

The flavors are consistent, pleasant, comforting and ‘warm’. Halfway the chocolate gets stronger and the coffee loses some of its strength and slowly fades away to the background. At the 2/3rd mark something mild salty and peppery show up but disappears just as easy. At the end the pepper makes a temporary comeback.

I get a lot of smoke from this cigar, but the smoke is a bit thin. The color of the ash is quite light gray and the ash is pretty firm. The burn is great, sharp as a razor and I don’t have any complaints about the draw.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, I like the Ashton VSG series a lot

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10

Some of the cigars reviewed on this blog were kindly send to me by the manufacturers or shopowners and I would like to thank them here, Rudy from Vegas de Santiago, Jose from Don Rigo, Richard from Manila cigars, Don Ursulo from Don Ursulo cigars,Robert from Bucanero cigars, Eric from Kioki cigars, Kyle at Warped cigars and Henny from havanacigar.

If you are a cigar manufacturer or a cigar shop owner and you would like me to review your cigars, you can send me a sampler and I will write a review and put a link to your website on my blog. Feel free to contact me at fp128@reageert.nl

The aroma of the cigar makes me think of chocolate, pepper and something sweet. It is a unique aroma and I can even smell some cinnamon. The construction feels good and the fine predraw gives off a peppery flavor.

The first flavor is wood, I don’t know what kind of wood, but it is a specific flavor which I only tasted in Opus X and Liga Privada #9 before. I also taste some sweetness and mild chocolate. The flavors are rich, deep and complex but not overpowering. Halfway some pepper accompanies the wood, the sweetness and the chocolate, although the sweetness is disappearing slowly. At the same time the chocolate and wood are getting stronger. The finale is that typical Opus X wood again.

This cigar produces a lot of pretty smoke. I had terrible burn issues with this cigar, I had to light it over and over again which made the cigar bitter at some points. If it wasn’t for a review I would have tossed the cigar due to the burn issues, I never had a cigar burn worse than this top shelve stick. The ash is dark and frayed. Due to the flash the ash looks light colored on the picture, but in real life it was dark, ugly and frayed.

Would I buy this cigar again? I still have a few and they are very nice without the burn issues, but are they worth the money? Don’t think so

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 4 / 10
Aroma (first part) 8 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10