*Note: This is not a blind review, this is just to give a quick take on a cigar that was provided to us by the manufacturer.
The Dubnium is part of Foundry’s Compounds, Elements, and Musings line. The cigar is a 6×60 box press and is priced at an MSRP of $6.75 each.
Initial Impressions
The initial things you see when looking at the cigars are the bands. The primary band has a large grinning cat face and covers up about 50% of the cigar. The secondary band lists the element Dubnium and together they cover about 75% of the cigar. Getting beyond the packaging, the cigar has a soft box press and a medium brown wrapper. There are a couple of medium size veins along with some very fine ones. The seams are slightly visible, but very smooth. The caps are very neatly applied. The aroma from the wrapper is a very faint hay and I get sweet tobacco from the foot.
The Smoke
The pre-light draw brings a much stronger flavor of hay than the aroma from the wrapper provided. After lighting, the initial flavors are a spicy cedar with quite a bit of pepper through the nose. An interesting thing I am noticing is that the cigar is making a sound as I draw on it. One of the leaves in the filler is making a sizzling sound as it burns. After a half inch, the sizzling leaf went silent, the spicy cedar changed to an oak and the pepper in the retrohale lowered in intensity. The ash dropped at about the one inch mark. A little bit of coffee has joined in on the flavor and now the retrohale is primarily oak. Oak remained the primarily flavor with the coffee jumping in and out for the remainder of the third. I would put the body and strength both at medium.
Oak continues here in the second third while some spice has made its way into the retrohale. The spice left the retrohale pretty quickly. Oak continues as the primary flavor while coffee does come in and out. Towards the end of the third a bit of bitterness has come in, but it’s not too bad. The ash continued to drop in about one inch increments. The body and strength continued at medium.
The slight bitterness continues here in the final third. The oak which has been so prevalent throughout the cigar has added some char to the flavor. The bitterness went away and the charred oak maintained itself until the cigar was done. Both the body and strength picked up a bit as this final third went along.
Overall Impressions
The draw was pretty good. Slightly more resistance than what I prefer. The burn line was a little wavy, but never got too far off track and needed no touch ups. The sizzle from the cigar I mentioned earlier would pop back in during a random draw, typically right after the ash would drop. The cigar was firm throughout. No issues in the construction during the smoke.
The slight box press was welcomed as it has a better mouth feel than a regular 60 ring gauge. The lack of flavor transitions left something to be desired. Also, the primarily oak flavor was a little monotonous after a while. I really would have preferred some additional flavors or more transitions. The performance of the cigar was pretty good, so I didn’t need to pay any attention to that. Overall, this cigar wasn’t anything too exciting which is what I’ve found from other cigars from Foundry. I won’t be eager to reach for another.
The cigar lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes for me.
I would give the Foundry Dubnium: The Cheshire Cat a personal score of 85.