Diamond Crown Julius Caeser (Prerelease)

During the middle of the cigar boom—1996 to be exact—the J.C.Newman Cigar Company introduced the Diamond Crown brand of cigars to the world. The second line in the brand, the Diamond Crown Maximus was introduced in 2003.

At the 2009 IPCPR Trade Show in New Orleans, the newest line in the Diamond Crown brand was introduced, the Diamond Crown Julius Caeser. Named in honor of the company’s founder, J.C. Newman—the J.C. stands for Julius Caeser—the new line that will be produced at the Tabacalera A. Fuente.

The Julius Caeser will consist of four different sizes when the full line is released to the public sometime in 2010, but the only vitola that anyone has tried is a huge double corona.

This cigar was supposedly to be released in late 2009, but so far almost nothing has been heard of it.

• Cigar Reviewed: Diamond Crown Julius Caeser
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia
• Wrapper: Connecticut seed Ecuadorian Sun Grown
• Binder: Dominican
• Filler: Dominican
• Size: 7 5/8 inches
• Ring Gauge: 49
• Vitola: Double Corona
• Est. Price: n/a
• Release Date: 2010

Make no mistake, this is a large cigar. The wrapper is a light red-brown and smells only of tobacco and only faintly at that. It is a fairly firm cigar when squeezed and almost feels like it is overfilled. Taking all these things into account, I was thinking it was going to be a fairly mild smoke.

Right after lighting the cigar, I get a nice amount of spice up front, but it quickly fades into the background and almost disappeared. At the same time,  I am tasting a strong leather flavor, mixed with cedar and just a touch of sweetness, almost but not quite like caramel.

Around the start of the second third, the spice starts picking up and while the cedar remains, it’s mostly in the background at this point. In fact, it almost seems like the spice and the cedar flavors switched places, the sweetness from the first third is gone, replaced by a faint earthy note.

The final third is where this stick really falls apart. The spice disappears, the leather disappears, the cedar disappears, and all I was left with was an almost annoying bland flavor of tobacco that, while not horrible by any means, is exceedingly boring. It continues that way until the end and the cigar does get a bit hot at the end, but not enough to really bother me.

Final Thoughts:

• I was honestly expecting a better cigar than this, especially considering that it is supposed to be honoring the founder of the company.
• Don’t let the press release fool you, this is a medium strength cigar at best. There is some spice in the smoke, but it stays in the background for pretty much the whole stick and is never a major factor.
• As you may or may not know, I recently reviewed another new Fuente release, the Angelenos. This was a better cigar than that one, but honestly, only marginally.
• Having said the above, there is a slight twist in the story. While I am one of the first to smoke this cigar, I am not the first, and the reviews before mine have been fairly similar. However, when someone mentioned their disappointment with this cigar on the Cigar Family forum:
  

  As I believe Rich mentioned at the CFC, the JCs that were handed out were way too young to be smoked. Several thousand of the ones that were initially rolled earlier this year had to be thrown out because the blend was wrong. Consequently, the ones that were passed out were just a few weeks old — too wet and without enough time for the flavors to marry.

• The burn was perfect for the entire stick, but the draw was way too loose. Which I found odd, considering the fact that it seemed overfilled when squeezed.
• The final smoking time was two hours and five minutes, which I think is actually a bit fast for a cigar this size.

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.