Davidoff introduced the Winston Churchill Late Hour as an extension of their Winston Churchill cigar line at this year’s IPCPR.  The Late Hour is named after time of day that Winston Churchill found most of his inspiration and creative spark, the late hours.  What makes this cigar unique is that the Nicaraguan Condega Visus tobacco used in the cigar is aged in fine scotch whisky barrels for six months.  This isn’t the first time Davidoff has used barrel aged tobaccos as they use barrel aged tobaccos in both the Camacho Nicaraguan and American Barrel Aged cigars.

Courtesy of Davidoff Cigars

• Wrapper: Ecuador Habano Marron Oscuro
• Binder:  Mexican San Andres Negro
• Filler:  Dominican San Vicente Mejorado Visus, Dominican Piloto Seco and Olor Visus, Nicaraguan Estelí Visus and Nicaraguan Condega Visus
• MSRP:  $20.10
• Size:  7 x 48
• Purchased at The Cigar Shop in Biloxi, MS

 

Courtesy of Davidoff Cigars

Appearance

The cigar has a beautiful smooth wrapper with a leathery appearance.  As I clipped the cap off, I tested the draw of the cigar.  The draw was perfect with notes of rich earth, leather and hay.

First Half

The cigar opens with notes of toffee, white pepper, milk chocolate, earth and hay notes.  I do get hints of the scotch from the cask aging.  It imparts a hint of a peaty flavor that’s really nice.  It’s faint, but its there.  The burn is perfect and the cigar puts off a large volume up smoke with a medium body.

Last Half

The last half has more of the scotch notes with a bit of charred wood flavor.  I get hints of vanilla as well and the toffee note has subsided some.  The cigar still has the earth, hay and white pepper notes along with picking up a slight citrus sour note.  The burn is still excellent with a medium-full body.

Conclusion

I really, really love this cigar.  The flavors were very tasty, had a good body to it and the barrel aging imparted a nice peaty scotch flavor to the tobacco.  The burn was impeccable and didn’t need a single touch up.  I choose the churchill size to do my review as I feel it had a lot more flavor than the toro or the robusto.  Others agree with me on that note as Davidoff was sold out of the churchill size for a little while.  Aging the tobacco in Isley single malt scotch barrels for 6 months, really imparted a nice flavor from the scotch, but not overly so.  It’s still balanced in flavor, but with a nice muted scotch whisky note.  Davidoff has had an amazing year with the new cigar releases like the 702, Avo Ritmo, Camacho American Barrel Aged and The Master Collection.  For me though, the Winston Churchill Late Hour, especially in the churchill size, is the best of these new releases.  Davidoff produces some of the best cigars in the world and the Winston Churchill Late Hour sets a new benchmark for others to be judged.