HDM Excalibur Dark Knight II

[Whee]

Time for another review.

Tonight, I am revisiting an old friend. This is a cigar I have not smoked in over a year I believe. I was reorganizing humis today, found it, and thought, "I need to burn this."

Tonight's review:

HDM Excalibur 1066 Dark Knight II
6.5 x 52
Wrapper: Connecticut Havana
Filler: Dominican, Connecticu and Honduran

Here it is...let's hope it's not a "joker"


The appearance of this stick is a gorgeous, dark brown, oily wrapper with only one prominent vein near the top. Very smooth and firm to the touch. The pre light aroma is sweet tobacco. I clipped the cap, and the rest of it fell off. Getting a nice tea flavor on the pre light draw, which is firm, but not uncomfortably so.

It lit up easily and I am getting a strong leather flavor off the bat. The missing cap is a little annoying, but not terrible.

This stick is a slow starter, but I am getting some wonderful amounts of smoke at 5 minutes...


15 minutes in and still getting lots and lots of creamy, white smoke. Draw is a little snug. The flavor has picked up some sweetness in addition to that strong leather. Maybe it's molasses I taste, very nice. The ash is firm and I am getting a nice cedary aroma off the stick.

30 minutes...


Still has a nice, strong leather flavor. Draw is still firm, but ok. Still getting lots of smoke. Love sitting in the "fog". Getting something sweet and fruit like now. Can't figure out what it was, but it was very nice the couple of draws it was there. Back to the leather.

This is a pretty solid stick so far. Flavor is holding up nicely. Very slow smoke. 45 minutes in and only about 1/3 of the way in. I like that. Rests well, lots of smoke and can sit for three or four minutes with no issues when I pick it up.

Burn aroma is now campfire like, with roasted coffee coming through.



Here we are at one hour. No big changes at this time at about the halfway point. Getting very light pepper notes under the leather.

At 80 minutes, it has switched a little to a spiciness I can't identify. It's sweet. Bit of a smoky flavor coming through as well, if that makes any sense. Burn has become a little ragged and I notice we are tunneling a bit. The ash is medium gray and holds fairly solid.

20 minutes later, the dreaded harshness has made an appearance and the burn is still ragged. Just doesn't want to self correct and I have touched up a couple times.

And we died here at 151 minutes...


Still smoking really well as you can see, but it had turned harsh.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this stick. It lasted nearly two hours and maintained a nice flavor throughout. Not terribly complex, but satisfying. A forgotten gem I was glad to rediscover.

Appearance: 17 (20)
Lighting and Burning: 12 (15)
Construction: 23 (30)
Taste: 28 (30)
Overall: 80