Danish cigars? Yes! But not made in Denmark though! The Danish have a long tradition with tobacco, dating back from the time when they traded with the West Indies as merchants and up till today Denmark is a major player in the pipe tobacco business, but back in the day the tobacco that the merchants brought from the West Indies was used for cigars too. And in the recent years two Danish entrepeneurs decided to go back into history and create their own brand & blend. I reviewed the Dominican made Splendid earlier this year and this exact same Royal Danish Regal Blend belicoso back in 2016, but since I now work with a 100 point scoring system I decided to do another review.

Royal Danish has cigars made in two different countries, Costa Rica and Nicaragua and as far as my knowledge goes, the Regal blend is made in Nicaragua at an undisclosed factory. The cigar should pack some punch as it has double ligero wrapped in a dark maduro wrapper. There is an ultra luxury edition of the same cigar with gold leaves and swarovski crystals but in my opinion, and without having smoked it, that is just a gimmick like the Daniel Marshall 24k gold torpedo that I reviewed last year too. I got this cigar as a sampler from the brand owner when my previous employer showed interest in distributing the brand, but the prices of these blends were just crazy high especially compared to other private labels made by the Plasencia family, so we said ‘no’. Another small distributer took Royal Danish on and Royal Danish added a few reasonable priced blends to the portfolio.

The first thing I notice when I want to release the cigar from the cellophane is how the cellophane is closed, not with a simple bar code sticker but a nice round, silver colored sticker with hologram and the text ‘2014 Royal Danish Cigars”. The rings and how the cigar is presented is so different and beautiful that in a shop it would worry me and would give me a Gurkha feeling. With that I mean that the packaging and marketing are more important than the cigar itself, and combine it with the ‘rare tobacco blah blah’ marketing of Royal Danish which I don’t fall for. But since I don’t score on marketing that won’t effect the score. The inch long foot ring is brown with red curly letters saying ‘Danish West Indies’, golden letters ‘Regal Blend’ and then a marketing story in black on a brown wrapper. On the bottom the roller had to put his initials. The oval top ring is black with the Danish crest and a golden crown. The crown has a crystal in it, which is unique, but what is most unique is the red ribbon running over the cigar from the foot to the top and then back to the foot. The construction feels good and the belicoso has a very sharp point. The wrapper is dark with one thin vein on the side of the cigar. The aroma is strong and I smell a mixture of barnyard, a dusty old abbandoned house and a foggy forest.

Punching is not an option with a belicoso so I used my Xikar to cut. The cold draw gives a bit more resistance than I prefer and I taste raisin and red pepper. After lighting it with my preferred soft flame I taste dark roast coffee with cane sugar. The sugar is quite strong. The sweetness is the strongest flavor but after half an inch i taste cedar and nutmeg too, with some white pepper on the background. Then out of the blue I taste a strong vanilla flavor. After a third I taste coffee with creamy vanilla and cedar. Halfway I taste nuts with still a little coffee, vanilla and a slowly growing pepper. The final third begins with cedar, vanilla, pepper and nuts, very flavorful and tasty.

The draw is fine, better than in the cold draw. The ash is salt & pepper colored and quite firm. The smoke is medium in thickness and volume. The burn is straight and slow. This cigar is full bodied and full flavored with plenty of evolution. The smoke time is an hour and fifteen minutes

Would I buy this cigar again? If it was a third of the price, yes, but with the close to €20 price tag, nope!

Score: 91

Review with pics: https://cigarguideorg.wordpress.com/...blend-queen-1/
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