A friend came down to visit this past weekend. It was supposed to a low key time for alcohol, and c…

Written on Monday, February 26th, 2007

Diamond Crown Maximus A friend came down to visit this past weekend.
It was supposed to a low key time for alcohol, and cigars at a local pub.

Having posted an embarrassingly low number of cigar reviews, I thought I would take the opportunity to do one.
Now, I knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be an ideal review situation.
I wasn’t going to be able to take notes or anything.
So I grabbed a cigar I had some familiarity with hoping that would make remembering the details a little easier.

Additionally it was a cigar I had enjoyed in the past.
The Diamond Crown Maximus.
(this was the Robusto #5)

Things didn’t work out exactly as I had planned.
I had a less than stellar experience with this cigar. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I had previous times.
I didn’t enjoy it much at all to be quite frank.

Being a huge fan of the Fuente line up in General, and a relatively recent admirer of the Oliva family products… the Diamond Crown Maximus is a no brainier.

The Diamond Crown Maximus is made in extremely limited quantities and is only available to a handful of suppliers throughout the US. The secret to this fuller-bodied blend is its El Bajo Sun Grown wrapper that packs a robust flavor. This wrapper is grown in Ecuador by the Famous Oliva tobacco family, growers of the worlds finest tobacco. This leaf in conjunction with the expert rollers at the Fuente factory in the Dominican Republic have turned the Diamond Crown Maximus into a legend.

- Source: Cigar.com

Since I was previously very impressed with the cigar I found myself wondering… what went wrong?
I mean this is a cigar whose name is often spoken in the same breath as OpusX! (aff)

I think there are multiple factors here.

1) I was at a bar.
Try as you might you just can’t give a cigar the attention it deserves while socializing at a bar.
You may thoroughly enjoy it, but you’re not likely to retain much to build a solid review.

2) I’ve had some trouble with my humidor’s RH% recently.
This really stinks, and I only have myself to blame. Several times I have walked past the humi to see percentages approaching the lower 50s. (and once even lower!). I just haven’t been as diligent as I should. It is entirely possible that the cigar was adversely affected by this.

3) I had a less than stellar cut.
I think it may actually be time to send the ol’ Xicar (aff) in for sharpening. The cutting of this cigar was awful. It took THREE attempts to get a nice clean cut.

5) I was drinking a Bass beer.
While I like Bass beer I don’t know what I was thinking when I ordered it for a cigar session.
t’s a very strong, bitter beer and it really isn’t the type of drink that like to take a back seat to anything on the palette.

6) Had to resort to matches. The icky kind.
Forgot my butane. Damn!
Had to use matches.
They yucky kind.
I took all the precautions one can take in such a situation but it was still less than perfect.
Even the burn was a bit off thanks to my lack of skill with match lighting.

NES
7) The Nintendo NES.
Yes you heard right. The Nintendo NES.
Old school. This bar had a TV setup with a NES and my buddy and I sat there all night playing Mario Brothers, Blades of steel. and Excite Bike. While this little bit of nostalgia was FUN… I let the cigar go out a couple of times. But what was I supposed to do? When you’re marching through levels on Galaga you just don’t put the controller down!

Given all of that I can’t in good conscious give this cigar a good review.
But please take this with a grain of salt. More than once I can remember sitting down with one of these and thinking “Damn that’s a good cigar!”

So… I guess I’m not much help here.

Wanna try this cigar? (aff)