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Stogie Reviews: 5 Vegas Miami Churchill

16 Oct 2007

I’ve praised 5 Vegas before, so I was excited to sample their newest line: the Miami. While the company’s earlier lines seem to fit into either the “value” (with the original, gold, and black lines) or “premium” such as with the Limitada edition, Miami fills the gap in between, with an MSRP of about $8 or so. They can be found, however, for half that price on cigarbid.com.

5 Vegas MiamiCigar International (owner of the 5 Vegas brand) didn’t specify who produced previous 5 Vegas lines, but Miami is made by the hottest blender and producer in the business: Don “Pepin” Garcia. Garcia produces the cigars in his El Rey de los Habanos factory in Nicaragua.

Curiously, while the advertising copy accompanying the 5 Vegas Miami notes the El Rey de los Habanos factory by name, it makes no mention of Don Pepin, leaving it to the informed reader to put two and two together. This is pure speculation, but I suspect that in an effort to protect the “Don Pepin” brand name, an agreement may have been reached to not use his name in the promoting of this particular line.

Like other Don Pepin cigars, this is a Nicaraguan puro featuring a “Cuban-seed” corojo wrapper. The wrapper is a deep Colorado brown color and only has a few small veins. The Churchill has classic Churchill proportions: seven inches by 48 ring gauge.

Before lighting the cigar I notice a musty scent from the foot. To the touch the only imperfection is that the bottom third of the cigar is slightly spongy.

After clipping the cigar, and lighting it with a few wooden matches, I find an easy draw. The burn starts out even and would remain so until the end.

Most prominent in the 5 Vegas Miami Churchill is a cedary flavor with an underlying bite. That bite is characteristic of nearly every Don Pepin-blended cigar I’ve tried, and seems to be the result of his heavy use of strong Nicaraguan ligero.

Additionally, I notice flavors that remind me of charred steak – an unusual flavor to find in a cigar, but not altogether unpleasant. And around the midway point, as the char flavors fades, creamier notes develop that go very well with the ligero “twang” that persists to the end.

Ultimately, the 5 Vegas Miami Churchill is similar to other cigars produced under the watchful eye of Don Pepin. This particular blend is medium-bodied with lots of flavor and good balance. But it lacks the deep complexity of Pepin’s eponymous line, or Tatuaje that made him a household name for many cigar enthusiasts.

Still, this is good cigar at a reasonable price. The 5 Vegas Miami Churchill earns a rating of three and 1/2 out of five stogies.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

Patrick S

9 Responses to “Stogie Reviews: 5 Vegas Miami Churchill”

  1. Matt Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 8:41 am #

    It's my understanding that at least the Classic line, if not the Gold, A, and Limitada as well are made by La Aurora. Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me remember were I saw that….

  2. cigarfan Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 11:14 am #

    This blend was actually created by Janny Garcia, Jose's daughter! It's produced under her supervision in their Nicaragua factory — Tabacalera Cubana.

    http://www.cigarfamily.com/cf4/thread.cfm?Room=Ci

  3. Mac and Nudo Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 2:06 pm #

    Can you guys please clarify for me how Miami “fills the gap in between” the other value and premium lines? At $8, Miami appears to be more expensive than the premium Limitada line. Thanks in advance for the clarification.

  4. Patrick S Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 2:30 pm #

    Mac and Nudo-
    while you’re right that the MSRP is actually more expensive than the Limitada, the fact is that you’re far more likely to pay $3-4 – maybe even less if you get lucky – a stick if you get this off of cigarbid (which is owned by Cigar International).

    So while you’re technically correct, for practical purposes this ends up being slightly less expensive than the Limitada.

  5. Patrick S Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 5:33 pm #

    Cigarfan-
    Thanks, very interesting. So apparently this is a Garcia cigar, just not the Garcia you’d expect!

  6. Dr Pepper Monday, September 29, 2008 at 3:29 pm #

    girly smoke

  7. John Werner Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 6:25 pm #

    I generally think 5 Vegas are solid good cigars with the Series A being the one I've enjoyed the most. There's something keeping them from the very uppermost shelf and I think it is complexity. With the Miami Churchill I'm thinking "here we go again" regarding the taste: This cigar tastes good, has just a bit of bite, yet isn't particularly complex as it goes…just a really nice aged cedar taste with just a little leather and pepper. It's not nut-like but it has a bit of toasted slightly sweet "bready" taste on ocassion. I would say at about $6 bucks it is solid as it has absolutely no off tastes and is very enjoyable right away without any additional humidor time. Not a grand slam but a a nice triple!

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