Early last year, Small Batch Cigars—which is the online store of Maxamar Ultimate Cigars—announced that it would be the exclusive retailer for the smallest vitola in Caldwell Cigar Co.’s Long Live The King blend, the Harem.

The sixth vitola in the line is a 4 x 42 petit corona that is made up of a Dominican corojo wrapper from 2008 covering a Dominican corojo binder from 2009 and a filler blend composed half of Dominican corona ligero, 10 percent pelo de oro and 40 percent Nicaraguan habano tobacco. Rolled at the Caldwell Cigar Factory in the Dominican Republic, there were at total of 4,050 cigars produced, packaged in boxes of 27 with each cigar retailing for $6.

Here is what I said in my original review back in May 2016:

I am a big fan of smaller vitolas, and the Harem seems to be well suited to the blend, with a great floral sweetness and a creamy oak note that stuck around for the entire cigar. The construction was virtually flawless, and smoke production was dense and seemingly never ending. In fact, about the only thing I disliked about the cigar was the extreme increase in strength in the final third, which really threw the entire balance of the profile off. However, even with that issue, the Harem is a very good cigar that is well worth trying, especially if you are a fan of smaller vitolas.

  • Cigar Reviewed: Caldwell Long Live The King Harem
  • Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
  • Factory: Caldwell Cigar Factory
  • Wrapper: Dominican Republic
  • Binder: Dominican Republic
  • Filler: Dominican Republic Ligero, Dominican Pelo de Oro & Nicaragua Habano
  • Length: 4 Inches
  • Ring Gauge: 42
  • Vitola: Petit Corona
  • MSRP: $6 (Boxes of 27, $154)
  • Release Date: April 2016
  • Number of Cigars Released: 150 Boxes of 27 Cigars (4,050 Total Cigars)
  • Number of Cigars Smoked For Redux: 1

Unlike the cigars in the original review that were almost shockingly spongy, this Caldwell Long Live The King Harem is quite firm, albeit not even close to rock hard. The chocolate brown wrapper is smooth as silk, but there is virtually no oil that I can see. Aroma from the wrapper is a combination of bitter chocolate, hay, barnyard, cedar and black pepper while the fantastic cold draw brings wonderful flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, spiced apples, earth, coffee beans and creamy oak.

The flavors in the Caldwell Long Live The King Harem start to make themselves known immediately after toasting the foot, with notes of both fresh coffee beans and creamy peanuts the dominant combination, followed closely by cedar, creamed corn, hay, cloves, leather and barley. There is an enormous amount of caramel apple sweetness on the retrohale as well as some obvious black paper, but the spice that was present on my tongue in the first review is nowhere to be seen. The second half has even more caramel apple sweetness—it is so strong, it gets close to overwhelming at times—as well as a bit less black pepper, more creamy cedar and an interesting if sporadic orange citrus note that is never strong enough to make much of an impact on the overall profile.

Construction-wise, I simply pulled the pigtail off of the cap which led to an excellent draw with just the right amount of resistance, while the burn was close to razor sharp for the entire 51 minute smoking time. In addition, the smoke production is plentiful as well as thick, while the overall strength easily hits the medium mark by the time I put the nub down with less than an inch to go.

93 Overall Score

When I am smoking a petit corona, I am usually looking for an immediate blast of flavor that continues on through the smoke, with little to no harshness and a good amount of well-integrated strength. The one-year-old Long Live The King Harem hit all of those points easily, along with a fantastically dense cold draw as well as a wonderful amount of black pepper on the retrohale. In fact, the entire profile is significantly sweeter in general, leading to a much more complex profile overall. A great cigar in a great size with a decent price, and one I will definitely be smoking more of, albeit after I forget about them in my cooler for about a year.

Original Score (May 2016)
88
Redux Score (June 2017)
93
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Brooks Whittington

I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.