About a year ago I was at the office of one of the premium cigar distributers in The Netherlands and I noticed a cigar that I had never heard of, had never seen and didn’t know nothing about. I mooched a sampler, as a cigar geek I’m always curious about new cigars. It turned out its a cigar from a Swiss company called Cavelier but the cigar is Honduran made and I think it’s made by Plasencia in Danli. Company founder Sebastian Decoppet went to Honduras and developed the blend with Adin Perez from Plasencia, that’s why I expect that Plasencia makes the cigars too.

Now the blend is a secret but contains tobacco from Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Paraguay. I googled and found them on a Swiss webshop for about 12 euro’s for this 5 1/2×56 Diplomate. The cigar looks good, a nice medium dark brown wrapper with a oily shine to it, I see a few veins but it doesn’t make the wrapper look any less appealing. The ring is simple but quite nice, a thick white ring with a golden print of a man and a horse and on the back in very small curly letters the name of the brand. Now what makes the cigar stand out is a square of gold leaf glued to the wrapper. Cavelier isn’t the first or the only brand that does it, Daniel Marshall has one, Royal Danish has one and I bet there will be more but Cavelier only has a centimeter square and therefore I dare to smoke it. I smoked the Daniel Marshall one and that was a once but never again experience. The construction feels good. The aroma isn’t strong, it has a little ammonia and some hay.

I punched the cigar due to the 56 ring. The cold draw is very easy. I taste a mild pepper and raw tobacco. I taste coffee with a sharp bitterness. The sharpness goes away and is replaced by a caramel like sweetness. After an inch I still taste coffee with caramel, it’s still mildly bitter. After a third I taste wood with a nice bitterness and some honey. Halfway the flavors all of a sudden change to spices and wood with a fresh minty aftertaste.

Once I reach the 24 karat gold leave I taste a metallic flavor with the previous flavors, luckily it isn’t as bad as in the Daniel Marshall 24k torpedo. The spice is getting stronger, I also taste a strong pepper on the tip of my tongue. Once I’m passed the gold leave the metallic flavor is gone.

The smoke is medium thick to full and I get a good amount of smoke too. The draw is quite easy. The burn is a little off and needed to be corrected twice. The ash is firm, its grey with a little black. The cigar is medium plus bodied and medium full flavored. The smoke time is an hour and forty five minutes.

Would I buy this cigar again? No, it was a decent cigar but there are better cigars available for less money.

Score: 88

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