Ezra Zion Eminence Churchill Quick Look
Ezra Zion has been in the cigar business for a hand full of years. One of my favorite cigars from them is the Tantrum PA as it made my favorites list in 2014. Over the last year or so, they have released quite a few ultra limited released cigars. When I say ultra limited, I should say uber limited as some of the releases don’t go past 1000 cigars. The Eminence is one of their older releases in which you can get a 5pk of the 7×48 churchill for less than $45* at the Cigar Federation Store or other B&Ms and online retailers. The thing that really caught my eye was a quad cap. A triple cap has started being the norm for many manufacturers and the edition of the quad cap seems interesting or possibly overkill. None the less, the cigar has a nice rich dark brown San Andres wrapper with Nicaraguan binder and well aged fillers. The cigar has a slight box-press to it which somewhat hindered the draw as it was a little tighter than I prefer. The burn was nice, but not perfect. From that were a mix of gray, dirty white and a light brown ashes that lasted around an inch or so.
I paired the cigar with a cup of Community Coffee Chicory Blend coffee this morning. The flavor strength is around the upper medium area and starts off with a nice cocoa with black pepper and a slight spice kick. The fillers are aged from 5 to 7 years and this cigar has been resting about a year, so the spice is just right for my likings. The more I get into the cigar the more I notice the thicker draw and I believe its limiting the flavor strength and smoke output. Throughout the rest of the cigar, the cocoa changed its appearance. Periodically it would change from a cocoa to more of a chocolate flavor; kept things interesting. I can really taste the black pepper on the retrohale and its not overpowering as one would think. In the latter part of the cigar the spice eased up a bit in strength but not too much to turn me away from it. I start to notice a bit of sweetness coming from the cocoa/chocolate notes in the smoke. The sweetness is more pronounced when the chocolate flavor is in the flavor profile. At the end of the cigar the draw opens up some, but its too little and too late for me. The chocolate and black pepper (on the back half of the draw) got more richer after the draw opens up. I wish the whole cigar would have been the same as the ending.
Overall the cigar was pretty tasty. I had wished the draw would have been less thick. I think it effected the flavor sharpness and output of the smoke. Not that the cigar was bad, it was not one bit, I just think the pressing hindered it. The other non box-pressed cigars would be something I would look at next time. The corona and belicoso grand toro looks like the two sizes I will be looking into as they are not box-pressed. The coffee did nothing much for the smoke. It has that “spicy” aspect to it that I thought would add to the spice in the cigar, but it did no such thing.
*This cigar was provided to me, unsolicited, from Ezra Zion Cigars for this review.  Many thanks to those great people for the opportunity to review this cigar!
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