Diamond Crown Maximus

Malt Mileage Rating: ★★★★★

Origin: Dominican Republic 

Draw: Excellent 

Burn: Excellent 

Construction: Excellent 

Strength: Full  

Diamond Crown Maximus is a hefty cigar stuffed with full flavoured Dominican filler tobacco, and expertly handmade with a dark, oily sun grown Ecuador Sumatra wrapper by the rollers at the Fuente factory in the Dominican Republic.  The dark, oily sun grown maduro wrapper, which owes its dark colour to enduring rays of Ecuadorian sun shine, is designed to be an intensely flavoured tobacco leaf. 

With every puff, the cigar produces a dense white smoke that clings to the wrapper and then, as though reluctant to leave, slowly floats up from the tip. The smoke tastes of cedar, wood, ground coffee, cocoa and spice. Nutmeg leads, and then the cigar becomes mildly earthy and herbal with dried oregano, whole walnuts and earl grey. The tea is wet and bitter. Overall, Diamond Crown is a woody, spicy, tannic powerhouse of a cigar with interesting herbal and earthy flavours. 

Being (as just noted) a powerhouse of a cigar, consider pairing this cigar with a cask strength sherry rich malt, such as The Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso or Aberlour A’Bunadh. The flavours of a whisky at the usual alcohol by volume strength (whether 40%, 43% or 46% ABV) are easily lost in the full flavoured smoke of this cigar. The robust character of this cigar’s dark Ecuadorian sun grown maduro wrapper dominates and swallows up the flavour of any whisky weaker than 50% ABV, like some kind of hungry leviathan. For example, having initially tasted this cigar with Glenfiddich 18 year old, the full flavour of this cigar muted any subsequent taste of the whisky, making the whisky a very weak shadow of what it normally would taste like.  

With The Glenlivet Nadurra Oloroso, which boasts an alcohol volume of about 60%, there is a winy wooded and tannic Shiraz-like aftertaste. The sweet but drying nutty punch of this sherry-rich malt works well with the heavy full flavoured wrapper, and tastes like a ray of sunshine through a perfect storm of sweet, cedary, spicy smoke. Mouthwatering.