by Nick Kolakowski
Aircraft makers typically don’t roll out a brand-new model every year — not surprising, given the R&D involved. Likewise, Swiss-based Davidoff is well known for taking its sweet time between issuing new cigars, preferring to introduce different sizes and blends for existing lines. Considering that legend has it the company’s founder and namesake once torched thousands of cigars for not meeting his high standards, maybe that’s for the best.
Notable, then, is the recent introduction of the Davidoff Royal Salamones ($2,250/box of 50), an 8.25 x 57 stick that marries a zestful Ecuadorian wrapper (a hybrid created by legendary cigar blender Hendrik Kelner) with a decidedly mellow Dominican filler and binder, resulting in a well-rounded smoke with everything from hints of spice to deep, full-bodied notes. Like Davidoff’s Millennium Blend, the Royal Salamones come with two distinct bands, just to reemphasize to everyone in the room that you are, in fact, in possession of a cigar that costs more than a porterhouse steak for two.
The sizeable stick is also destined to be a rare one: As with the company’s other cigars, the Royal Salamones are hand-rolled by experienced torcedores in the Davidoff factory in Villa Gonzalez in the Dominican Republic; a process as exacting, in many ways, as constructing an aircraft component. A mere 100 boxes will be released for U.S. consumption, available only through Davidoff stores in New York and Las Vegas. Light one up during your next takeoff, and revel in the notion that you’re likely the only man in the skies who is. davidoff.com