Somm BDX

It wasn’t that long ago that in light of pending FDA regulations, the viability of new cigar companies launching seemed to be coming into question, and possibly something that might never happen in again. Yet the regulations haven’t come to pass in the entirety they were expected to, and new cigar companies have continued to launch.

Recently, Vlada Stojanov, best known as the U.S. distributor of Casa 1910, Despot, Lampert, Xhaxhi Bobi and formerly the American distributor for Casdagli, launched his own brand called Somm. As the name suggests, it is a reference to the word sommelier, as Stojanov is a trained sommelier or wine steward.

For his first releases, Stojanov created two blends. Somm BDX is a line that uses a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, a viso binder from Jalapa, Nicaragua and a filler that uses tobaccos from Mexico’s San Andrés region and Nicaragua’s Jalapa region, along with broadleaf grown in Honduras. It is produced at Fábrica Centroamericana de Tabaco S.A., the facility best known as the Cavalier Genève factory in Danlí, Honduras.

Its name is also a reference to the wine world, using an abbreviation for the famous French winemaking region of Bordeaux.

The line debuted at the 2023 Total Product Expo (TPE) trade show, released in a 5 x 50 robusto vitola priced at $13 per cigar and offered in boxes of 10 cigars. It began shipping to stores on March 1.

It wasn’t the only line from Somm to debut at TPE 2023, as the company also showed off the Somm Premier Cru, a limited edition 6 x 49 piramides made at the KBF Factory in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

• Cigar Reviewed: Somm BDX
• Country of Origin: Honduras
• Factory: Fábrica Centroamericana de Tabaco S.A.
• Wrapper: Mexico (San Andrés)
• Binder: Nicaragua (Jalapa Viso)
• Filler: Honduras (Broadleaf), Mexico (San Andrés) & Nicaragua (Jalapa)
• Length: 5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 50
• Vitola: Robusto
• MSRP: $13 (Box of 10, $130)
• Release Date: March 1, 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: 400 Boxes of 10 Cigars (4,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

The Somm BDX wears a fairly dark brown wrapper, one that is earthy in color and occasionally strays into what I would call very dark brown territory. There are some prominent veins, and they tend to make their way onto the front of the cigar. Seams are occasionally visible on the cylinder and are occasionally contrasting enough to stand out. As for the leaf, it is dry to the touch with a lot of fine grit texture. Each of the three cigars appears to be rolled well, though the construction of the heads leaves something to be desired. Additionally, it looks like the bands reach a bit higher than I would like, so I’ll be interested to see if they affect the smoking experience and need to be slid down once the cigar is lit. The aroma off the foot is mild but fragrant, with a bit of apple, some dry wood pieces, crackers, potato chips and just a bit of tingle from those aromas but not much from any pepper. The first cigar reminds me of a rich incense—the stuff you’re more likely to find in church as opposed to a dorm room—though it’s not consistent, which leads me to believe it may have been a one-off sensation or I might have just been misidentifying what I was smelling. The cold draw is good, if a bit firm at times, with a flavor that is dry and toasty but also offers a slightly sweet undertone of red grapes and berries. Like the aroma, there’s not a lot of pepper to be found here.

Given the dryness of the pre-light aroma and cold draw, I’m not surprised that the Somm BDX starts off with a dry flavor profile. There are dry wood bits, making me think of fragments of wood split with an axe as opposed to processed boards or sawdust, then some toast, potato chips, and some occasional earthiness as a distant complementary flavor. The cigar gets notably creamier once the ash falls off, making for a much more enjoyable profile. There is a bit of chalk, but it’s pretty minimal and damp enough so as not to be sharp on the palate. On the whole, it’s an enjoyable transition that gives the cigar a wider breadth of flavors, including a bit of dry peanut butter that hits my taste buds as the final experience on a few puffs. Flavor is medium or medium-plus, depending on how the dryness hits my taste buds, while the body is medium-plus and strength is mild. Construction is very good and thus far problem-free.

There isn’t much change as the Somm BDX gets into the second third, though it seems as if the cigar is beginning to a bit of a longer finish, and that finish is a bit more gruff and pronounced than it was earlier. I find myself returning to the retrohales a bit more as they haven’t taken on that roughness, offering a fairly clean white pepper. Something about the puffs in this section reminds me of apricot, though I can’t quite pin down what is causing the sensation. The second third has a tendency to get a bit funky around the midway point, something I can attribute a bit to the chalk reemerging, and while it is a bit concerning, it’s not long-lasting. The cigar returns to creaminess, a bit of marshmallow, wood, more pronounced earth and sprinkles of black pepper. The flavor is a bit more sporadic and sits at medium-plus, body is medium-plus and strength is still shy of medium. The burn rate seems to have picked up a bit, while construction remains very good on the whole.

The final third of the Somm BDX seems to start earlier and earlier, as the burn rate feels like it has increased from cigar to cigar. The flavor seems to have lightened a bit, or at least doesn’t pack the heavier flavors that the blend was starting to pick up in the second third. There’s less earth and the creaminess has shifted away from thickening up the body of the smoke, instead hitting more like a marshmallow does with a lighter, fluffier flavor. Firewood begins to fill in that vacated spot in the profile, while black pepper increases to close out the smoke. This nudges the profile up to medium-full, body stays around medium-full and strength is now medium. The draw, smoke production and combustion are all very good, though the burn line does get a bit wavy in this section, with each cigar’s wrapper struggling to burn right around the same spot about an inch below the head of the cigar, a remarkably consistent phenomenon.

Final Notes

• I really like the color of the Somm BDX band, the purple is a bit lighter than normal, reminding me of the color I sometimes see associated with wines and jellies.
• This is one of the quicker-smoking cigars I have had in a while, and I do not doubt that I could have shaved off a couple of minutes were I not obligated to write down notes and attend to other things going on around me while smoking it.
• I have not had a chance to smoke the Somm Premier Cru, but I’m certainly interested in doing so as I’m interested in what the company is debuting with and how those two cigars contrast each other.
• All three cigars ran into the same burn issue right around the same spot in the final third, as the wrapper hit a spot it could not burn through. While I can’t be sure that the issue occurred on the back side of the cigar, I’m pretty sure that it did, making me wonder if there might have been some issue caused by the band and its adhesive.

• The lids of the boxes indicate not just that the Somm BDX is a limited edition but also indicates when the cigars were rolled, which in this case was June 2022. It’s one of the rare times I’ve seen something like this on a cigar box, and which I have to think is another touch from the wine world, which includes the vintage year on most bottles of wine.
• I didn’t get much in the way of strength from the Somm BDX.
• The cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was one hour and 45 minutes on average.