Cypher 3311 Lorenz

Casdagli Cigars has authored some of the more interesting backstories for both its lines and the names of some of its cigars, but its new flagship project is taking this to a new level.

It’s a tribute to Major A. T. Casdagli, the grandfather of Jeremy Casdagli, the founder of Casdagli Cigars.

During World War II, Casdagli was captured by the Nazis and held captive as a prisoner of war. Given his status as an officer, he was housed in a literal castle in Spangenberg, Germany.

While there, he took up needlework and he would stitch patterns that would be sent to other POW camps run by the Nazis and even to his family. In their most obvious forms, the stitchings would have a message for his family about how long it had been since he had seen them, others would show a swastika. Not obvious to the Nazis were the various messages hidden in the borders, using Morse code to display messages like “God Save the King” or “Fuck Hitler.” Other messages were far more tactical, including giving updates about recently captured soldiers or attempted escapes from the castle prison.

These stitchings were sent back to Britain via the Red Cross under the guise that they were for his family, though they would be reviewed by the British Intelligence unit MI9, which worked extensively with those captured in POW camps. The Red Cross would send back letters from Britain, which Casdagli credited for keeping him sane enough to survive imprisonment.

After the war ended, Casdagli was released and his son—Jeremy’s father—would eventually publish a book “A Stitch in Time. God save the King – Fu*k Hitler!,” about Major A. T. Casdagli’s life and the stitchings.

“I have always wanted to honour my Grandfather’s artistic legacy as well as his service during WW2,” said Jeremy Casdagli in a press release. “It was not until 2012 when the Imperial War museum confirmed that not only did my Grandfather conduct a brave protest against the Nazis with his cypher messages hidden within his artwork created within the war prisoner camps but that he was also a member of MI9 which included the planning of POW escapes, the gathering of intelligence and the passing on of that intelligence through clandestine communications to London.”

To do this, Casdagli Cigars has created Cypher 3311, a four-size line that uses the stitchings and Morse code as inspiration for the packaging. The “3311” part of the name is a reference to Casdagli’s POW number.

As for the blends, all four cigars are listed as using Ecuadorian wrappers. The Needle size, which is box-pressed, and the Colossus are listed as having an Ecuadorian binder over fillers from the Dominican Republic, Peru and an undisclosed country. As for the blends of the Enigma and Lorenz vitolas, no additional details are being disclosed.

The bands for this release are based on one of the actual stitchings made during World War II.

Just 250 boxes of each size are being released for 2022, though Casdagli told halfwheel that number will double for next year. Each cigar is aged for one year, in July, Jeremy Casdagli told halfwheel that the 2023 cigars were already in production.

Casdagli is donating €1 per cigar to the Red Cross.

Each cigar is packaged in a coffin, which features Morse code around the perimeter.

• Cigar Reviewed: Cypher 3311 Lorenz
• Country of Origin: Costa Rica
• Factory: IGM Cigars
• Wrapper: Ecuador
• Binder: Undisclosed
• Filler: Undisclosed
• Length: 9 1/5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 58
• Vitola: Diadema
• MSRP: $60 (Box of 8, $480)
• Release Date: July 25, 2022
• Number of Cigars Released: 250 Boxes of 8 Cigars (2,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

There’s a lot going on with the packaging of this cigar and that extends to the coffins, which appear to have a few hidden messages on their surface. Visually, this is a pretty cigar with red and purple hues emanating from the dark brown wrapper. Unfortunately, once I pick up the cigars in my hand, I’m concerned. Each of the three cigars I smoke for this review have obvious soft spots, plural. One cigar is substantially firmer than the other two, but even that cigar has two soft spots, whereas the others have three noticeable soft spots, something that is pretty problematic given how squishy the non-soft spot areas of the cigar are. The aroma from the wrapper reminds me of the smells of ketchup, acorns, paste and some weird earthiness; it’s around medium-plus. The foot—which due to the vitola has barely any filler visible—is a bit spicier than the wrapper aroma but is very tough to discern. What’s not tough to discern is the cold draw. There’s a flavor that reminds me a lot of an artificial chocolate—almost a dead ringer for the type of chocolate smell you might find on a scratch-and-sniff sticker or book—along with some earthiness. It too is medium-plus.

Given the shape of the foot, it’s no surprise that the first puff is very tight. Even after a thorough lighting, the first puff of the Casdagli Cypher 3311 Lorenz delivers basically no smoke and just the slightest bit of a woody flavor. Concerned that the cigar might go out, I make it a point to take the first 10 puffs pretty quickly. After a few minutes, I feel the cigar begin to open up and have a sigh of relief that the cigar is going to make it through the first part without immediately going out. Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into the cigar—not even an inch in—I find myself needing to grab my lighter to help the struggling combustion. This song and dance continues every 10-20 minutes for the rest of the cigar, moving well past the point of an annoyance and into the level of concern. Flavor-wise, the Casdagli Cypher 3311 Lorenz is led by a vibrant oak flavor through most of the first third, while flavors of oatmeal, nuttiness, sunflower seeds and a very bitter dark chocolate are secondary notes. Black pepper seems to come and go as it pleases—some puffs there’s no pepper, other puffs it’s a dominant force; but it’s neither consistent nor linear. The finish has lots of earthiness, usually accented by creaminess, along with milder peanut shells and grapefruit. Retrohales are the best parts of the profile for me: a mild and tart fruitiness leads to a big roux-like starchiness along with some pencil lead. The retrohales are more intense, brighter and more interesting than the main flavor—the interesting part is key given the sheer size of the cigar. They finish sharper with white pepper and lemon joining a pretty similar mixture of flavors as the retrohales. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium-plus and strength is medium. Construction is problematic, though not consistent outside of the constant touch-ups. One cigar’s draw is fine, but there’s a literal indentation on one side of the cap, which creates a weird feeling of squishiness when the cigar is in my mouth. Another cigar lacks the indentation and has a decent draw, but the cigar is burning noticeably hot, both warmer than the other two cigars and warmer than how I’d like a cigar to be. The other cigar—the one with the best overall firmness—has a very tight draw.

About two hours in, I cross the midway point of the Casdagli Cypher 3311 Lorenz and it seems like each cigar has found a rhythm. On one hand, the flavors are enjoyable, but on the other hand, it’s quite monotonous. There’s a woody mixture—cedar stands out more than oak—over crackers, saltiness and something that reminds me of the inside of a sunflower seed. The finish is chalkier with the saltiness standing out a bit more. That seems to lead to a larger sunflower seed flavor along with some more poignant white pepper. Retrohales continue to be the more interesting part of the profile with strawberries, sunflower seeds, spiced rum, earthiness and a touch of a floral flavor. The finish provides incredible contrast to the retrohales: burnt coffee, toastiness and saltiness. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium-plus and strength is medium. Construction continues to be an issue and is getting worse. While the draws stay the same on each cigar, the frequency of the touch-ups is generally increasing, making it difficult to go 15 minutes without needing to provide more fire to the end of the cigar. This is with me smoking at a quicker than normal pace, something that leads to the temperature of the smoke getting hotter and therefore the flavor getting harsher. When fully lit, there’s plenty of smoke leaving both the foot of the cigar as well as my mouth.

One cigar seems to be a near copy of the second third, or at least a linear path from the second third. It’s getting increasingly saltier, and to a lesser degree, harsher—but it’s very similar to the second third in just about every attribute. The same cannot be said for the other two cigars—one of the squishy cigars and the one firmer cigar—which are getting noticeably bitter. Nuttiness, woodiness, leather and harshness are the flavors during the main puffs. The finish is extremely short, or at least the non-bitter and harsh parts, with just some woodiness and black pepper. Retrohales seem very similar to the second third, but the flavor level is noticeably below the level of bitterness I’m getting in my mouth, leaving an overall impression of bitterness. Given that I’ve likely touched-up each cigar 20 times, this isn’t really surprising, but it doesn’t make the experience any more enjoyable. Flavor is full, body is medium and strength is medium. The sample with the tight draw is easily the worst of the bunch in the final third, it’s harsh enough that I wouldn’t be smoking it if not for this review.

Final Notes

• These three cigars were not bunched properly. This is something that is easy to proclaim with near certainty on a plugged cigar but is tougher to do on a cigar with soft spots. That said, given the levels of squishiness and the size of the cigars, there’s very little question in my mind.

• The video above should illustrate to you just how bad things got. I acknowledge that cigars get softer once they are lit, but this was a completely new level of squishiness. I only did this a few times beyond recording the video as I can’t imagine it was good for the cigar, but it’s incredible to not only see the cigar get squished and then return to a normal shape but also that it didn’t cause any damage to the wrapper. This is not normal. The other squishy cigar wasn’t this bad.

• This is the cigar with the indentation. You can see that the left side is a pretty smooth taper but the right side—which was technically the side opposite the front of the band—has an indentation. This was something that was present on the cigar from the moment I took out of the coffin. While not as firm as the left side of the cigar, I wouldn’t call it particularly squishy. I’m fascinated to know how this happened as it’s an issue I can’t recall ever experiencing. It was not present on the other two cigars.
• There’s a single part of halfwheel’s score sheet that asks about the appearance of a cigar, specifically, would you buy it? Basically, is there anything visually wrong with the cigar. I’d venture to guess that more than 99 percent of the cigars I review get “yes,” but every once in a while there’s an issue like this that leads me to answer “no.” I don’t think that this issue destined the cigar to be bad, but if I was in a store and spotted a cigar with this deformity, I would not buy it. I’d also not give it to a friend or have anyone else smoke it given it’s just not a good sign of things to come.
• The cigar with the tight draw earned one of the worst scores I’ve given a cigar in the last year. Construction-wise, it lost points for a tight draw and constant relights, flavor-wise, the final third was so bitter I wouldn’t have smoked it if I wasn’t doing a review.

• For whatever reason, people see construction issues like this and immediately want to speculate that the issue is obviously something other than an issue with the cigar. These cigars were purchased on Aug. 4 and shipped with Boveda packs. They were stored in the same humidor as every cigar I review, which ranged from 67.5-69.6 percent relative humidity during the last month.
• Furthermore, these cigars were rolled and aged for a year by Casdagli. Whatever excess moisture issues existed should have been worked out during that lengthy aging period.
• While I cannot rule out the possibility that the retailer we ordered these cigars from didn’t take the cigars out of cellophane, take a turkey baster and inject water into the cigars, then place them back in cellophane, coffins and the box—I think the more obvious explanation is that the cigars were bunched improperly.
• I was speaking with the owner of a different cigar company last week about a recent review of that company’s cigars that had issues and he mentioned something to me: issues tend to happen in batches. I’m curious to know how many other boxes are like this, but I imagine this isn’t the case where halfwheel managed to purchase the only bad box of cigars.
• This score is probably kinder than my actual thoughts about what I smoked over the course of nearly 28 inches of cigars, but I really liked the retrohale in the first half of the cigar. It gives me a belief that if these cigars were bunched properly, the tobacco and blend could be very good.

• I’m a huge fan of the packaging for this release. The bands show the dots of a needlepoint, the boxes and coffins have Morse code and other messages. There’s even more symbolism, as the coffins have decoration on both the front and back.
• The more and more I see cigars coffins, I wonder how long they will continue to be used in the cigar world. I haven’t found a scenario where they can be easily reused for something other than storing cigars. As such, it’s an incredibly wasteful thing and something that I think will become less and less used given the environmental impacts.
• If the environment isn’t a good enough reason for you to be skeptical of their longevity, coffins just add to the cost of your cigars. I think most consumers would be disappointed to find out how much of a cigar’s cost is related to packaging. That’s before taking into account that coffins add weight, which increases shipping costs, all things that add to the final price tag.
• There’s one other weird packaging quirk: the cellophane is closed using a piece of gift wrapping tape, something I’ve only seen a few other times.
• About a decade ago, I remember watching a video of Gordon Mott, then executive editor of Cigar Aficionado, lighting a perfecto and he talked about how you can cut the foot of a perfecto. I really don’t like doing this as I believe the cigar should be smoked the way it came and enjoy the feeling of a cigar opening. That said, if there was ever a time to do this, I think the Casdagli Cypher 3311 Lorenz is a great option. If I was giving this cigar to a novice smoker who might not understand the nuances of trying to prevent the cigar from going out, this would be something I’d consider doing.
• Final smoking time ranged between three and a half hours and four hours. There’s no question the burn rate increased in the second half of the cigar and especially after the first inch and a half of the cigar.