Up for review this week is a new cigar that seems to be flying under most people’s radar, the Baccarat “The Game” Dominican. Since Camacho announced the arrival of this addition to the Baccarat line at the end of July, I have heard next to nothing about it. In fact, the only people that seemed to be talking about the cigar where shop owners who were excited about the prospect of an unsweetened Baccarat cigar.

It seems that excitement hasn’t made it outside the cigar shop and onto the internet. Ordinarily when I do my quick round of research for information and background on the cigar I’m reviewing (read: when I Google it), I come across reviews others have done. Especially once a cigar has been out for a few months. Not this time. Could it be I’m getting the scoop on this review a full two months after the press release? It would seem so. Why? I have to think this new offering is getting passed over because people assume it’s just another sweetened-cap Baccarat. But it probably doesn’t help that it was released shortly after the much more popular Camacho Connecticut either.

What makes the Baccarat Dominican especially interesting, aside from its unsweetened cap, is that it’s the first co-creation of Camacho and their new owners, Davidoff. Essentially it’s a Camacho cigar being made in Davidoff’s OK Cigars factory in Santiango, Dominican Republic. The same factory that produces such well known cigar lines as Avo and Zino. So the cigar has a pretty impressive background, and it seems to still be a bit of a mystery. So now it’s time for me to shed a little light on this mysterious stick. Some torch light.

Cigar Stats:
Size: 5 x 50
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut
Binder: Dominican Republic
Filler: Dominican Republic
Smoking Time: 1 1/2 hours
Beverage: Water
Price: MSRP $5.26

The Pre-Smoke
As you are well aware I inspect a lot of cigars for reviews, and the Baccarat Dominican has to have the most most consistently colored wrapper leaf of any cigar I’ve come across in quite a while. Especially given it’s slightly darker shade of brown. It’s so common for the wrapper to have mixtures of lighter and darker hues that I rarely comment on it. This cigar has no color variation, and relatively few, moderately sized veins. Aside from a little bit of lumpiness in one cigar, the sticks were visually smooth and flawless.

Continuing my inspection I did find a flaw in one cigar. It had a noteworthy soft spot about a third of the way up from the foot that I discovered as I tested the firmness of the cigars. Otherwise, the sticks were pretty uniformly packed with tobacco.

The wrapper scent was an unremarkable compost, and though I tested the cold taste of each cigar, I wasn’t able to arrive at a consistent flavor. One cigar had a gamey flavor, others were more like either chocolate or coffee.

The Burn
The Baccarat Dominican gets pretty good marks in the burn department. The draw was good without being either too tight or too loose, and the ash was light colored and solid. Of the cigars I smoked for this review, only one required a relight, and it was that same stick alone that suffered from an extremely uneven burn line. (As it turns out, the problem cigar was not the one with the soft spot.)

The Flavor
The first third of this cigar was an ever changing combination of earth, coffee, and nuts with more body than I expected from a cigar billed to be a “mild to medium blend”. (Strength-wise it was.) Much like the Warped Private Blend I reviewed last week, this cigar had texture that lingered long after the smoke was gone. But the flavors themselves had a dryness that kept me refilling my water glass. I also noted some very mild sweetness in a couple of the cigars, as well as bit of woodiness as this third neared completion.

The woody flavor came to dominate one stick in the second third, while the others seemed to gravitate more toward black coffee and nuts. In all cases the there was an earthiness present, as well as tangy element at the beginning of this third.

The final third closed things out with the emergence of some darker, somewhat bitter chocolates, as well as continued earthiness and coffee.

The Price
It may be made by Davidoff, but it isn’t priced like it is. In fact, the Baccarat Dominican is on the low end of the price scale for Camacho. Looks like we have another option for cigar smokers on a budget!

The Verdict
Initially, the Baccarat Dominican wasn’t quite my flavor profile (I didn’t care for the dryness of the flavors specifically), but it started to grow on me a little the more of them I smoked. I found that my most enjoyable experience with this cigar was when I paired it with a cup of coffee, and could see myself trying that combination again in the future.

The press release (and many online retailers) describe this cigar as “a complex and silky smoke” and while I did find the flavors to be fairly complex, the body struck me as being more silty than silky. A little later I saw why that might be. This cigar left a mark. A big black area on my tongue. It has happened before with other smokes, but it’s been a while. It’s not clear to me what causes this to happen with some cigars and not others, but frankly, it is a bit of a deterrent. Not enough for me avoid the Baccarat Dominican, but enough that I’ll probably steer clear of it a day or two before visiting the dentist.

Liked It: It was OK
Buy It Again: Maybe
Recommend It: Yes, Camacho fans should give this budget smoke a shot

Tower of Burn
Here for your viewing pleasure is my trademark Tower of Burn.