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| D’Crossier Diplomacy Series Golden Blend Aged 10 Years Robusto |
The D’Crossier Diplomacy Series Golden Blend Aged 10 Years is the latest release by D’Crossier Cigars. The D’Crossier brand is made by Pure Aroma Cigars. Back in 2010, the company introduced the first D’Crossier Golden Blend – described as a mild to medium offering using select tobaccos aged for seven years. Early last year, work on the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years series began. This new blend is positioned as medium to full smoke. D’Crossier says the blend uses some of the best tobacco made available to the company – 40 percent which was harvested back in 2004. Recently, I’ve had an opportunity to smoke the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years. I have personally been very impressed with the products coming from this company – and once again D’Crossier does not disappoint. This delivers another outstanding cigar experience.
Pure Aroma Cigars was founded by Isaias Santana Diaz. The company is based in Miami, Florida but makes its cigars out of Costa Rica. Diaz is originally from Havana, Cuba but has lived in the United States since 1995. He named his company’s main brand D’Crossier as a tribute to his great grandfather Francisco Crossier. Originally Crossier came over to Cuba from France in search of a place to expand some vineyards he owned. It was there where Crossier expanded his passion for cigars. Diaz founded the company to complete his great grandfather’s legacy.
Without further ado, let’s break down the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years and see what this cigar brings to the table:
Blend Profile
As mentioned above, the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years is manufactured in Costa Rica. The blend itself is a four country blend.
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Rosado (Higher Priming)
Binder: Costa Rican
Filler: Nicaraguan, Dominican
In terms of this project, Diaz communicated some more details to us around this blend:
The Diplomacy Series Golden Blend was created with the concept of using aged tobaccos from the same farms we purchase our tobaccos from. To be specific; a great percentage of tobacco of this new Golden Blend was harvested in 2004 and it was used in the first version of the Golden Blend. As far as the wrapper goes we are using the same variety (Ecuador Rosado). This first batch in which we are releasing on the 15th of April is a higher priming with nine months of fermentation. It is darker (oscuro) and provides much flavor to the blend. We also made some changes to the fillers and binder to gain a more fuller bodied and complexity to the blend. Every size smokes slightly different but the essence was capture with a superior quality in comparison with the first version.
I like it a lot more and i think consumers will have the same reaction to this luxurious blend. What i can say is that the combustion of this blend is less than the first version of the Golden Blend. Since we are using thicker fillers making this blend a very interesting slow burner , we all need to carry a lighter with this blend. I must add, the cigars were rolled in February/March last year, thus it shall not be any rough tannic flavor to it – even though some tobacco lovers enjoy those tannic flavor in their cigars. In long run the cedar (odorata cederela) we are using for the boxes will overcome and married the tobaccos reducing some of this tannic flavors.
Vitolas Available
The D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years is available in five sizes. The cigars are packaged in 25 count boxes:
Robusto: 4 7/8 x 50
Torpedo: 6 1/8 x 50
Taino: 6 1/2 x 52
Churchill: 7 x 47
Doble Corona: 7 1/2 x 49
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| Open box: D’Crossier Diplomacy Series Golden Blend Aged 10 Years Robusto |
Appearance
For this cigar experience, I smoked the Robusto vitola. The D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years Robusto has a dark cinnamon colored wrapper. There is a slight amount of oil on the surface. There ware some visible wrapper seams, but the wrapper does a good job at hiding most of the visible veins.
Flavor Profile
The D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years started out with a blast of black pepper. As the pepper subsided, nut flavors emerged in the forefront with a cedar sweetness in the background. The retro-hale reflected some of flavors on the tongue as I picked up notes of pepper and wood through the nasal passages.
By the ten percent point, the nut notes were joined by a bready component. Meanwhile the background flavors were the sweet cedar and pepper notes. As the Golden Blend Aged 10 Years moved into the later part of the first third, there were times there were also some dried fruit notes that surfaced.
In the early stages of the second half, the pepper spice moved toward the forefront. By the last third, the D”Crossier Golden Blend had the notes of bread and pepper in the forefront. The nut and cedar notes had diminished somewhat, but still complemented the notes in the forefront nicely. This is the way the flavor profile held until the end. The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature.
Burn and Draw
From a burn standpoint, I did find as Diaz mentioned this was a bit of a slow burner. At the same time, the burn temperature was ideal (not too hot, not too cool). While Diaz advised keeping the lighter handy, I didn’t see that this D’Crossier Aged 10 Years required an abnormal amount of touch-ups. The burn line was straight – and this cigar was low maintenance to keep it like burning straight. The resulting ash was on the firm side. It started out white in color early on, then became more salt and pepper colored.
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| Burn of the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years Robusto |
The draw to the Golden Blend Aged 10 Years was also idea. It had that slight touch of resistance – something I enjoy on a cigar. The made this cigar a joy to puff on.
Strength and Body
As mentioned at the start the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years was positioned as a “medium to full” smoke. I have not smoked the original D’Crossier Golden Blend, so I do not have a baseline to compare this to. From a strength perspective, the Golden Blend Aged 10 Years begins in the medium range, but does increase to a medium to full strength smoke by the second half. From a body perspective, the Golden Blend Aged 10 Years falls squarely in the medium to full range. Overall, the Golden Blend Aged 10 Years lives up to how this cigar was positioned. For the most part, the strength and body balance each other well – particularly in the second half as the strength catches up to the flavor.
Final Thoughts
Lately my eyes have been opened to cigars that are coming out of Costa Rica. Right now, Pure Aroma Cigars is doing it as well as anyone – and the D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years is a great example of this. I particularly felt this was a nice cigar from a flavor standpoint – and its definitely not a cookie cutter flavor profile. What I particularly liked is how this cigar was not overly spicy – and not overly sweet. Diaz said the cigar would not exhibit any of the tannic (acidic-like) flavors and I can confirm that indeed this is correct. This is a cigar that I would recommend to a novice cigar enthusiast looking to graduate to something in the medium to full range. This is a cigar I’d also recommend to an experienced cigar enthusiast. As for myself, this is certainly box worthy – and one that I would not only smoke again, but put into a cigar rotation.
Summary
Burn: Excellent
Draw: Excellent
Complexity: Medium
Strength: Medium (1st Half), Medium to Full (2nd Half)
Body: Medium to Full
Finish: Excellent
Assessment: 4.0 – Box Worthy
Score: 92
References
News: D’Crossier Golden Blend Aged 10 Years Announced
