All Size, No Action: Quintero Churchill

Is it me, or do Churchill-sized cigars deliver a lot less than they promise?

Last night I finally had a whole evening of uninterrupted time to hang out with a buddy and smoke a cigar, so I took along the biggest one in my humidor: The Quintero Churchill (natural), a square-pressed colossus coming in at 7.25 inches long and 54 ring wide. It looked great, and was rated #24 for all of 2006 by Cigar Aficionado. My hopes were high.

The last Quintero I had tried, a maduro robusto, had practically knocked me out of my seat, so I didn't know what to expect. Would this thing put me in the emergency room? You'd think a Churchill would deliver mazimum strength, duration and physiological impact.

Not so. With every Churhill I've smoked, you spend the first inch waiting for air to turn into smoke. After that, experience will vary. In the case of the Quintero, the flavor was pleasant and mid-range, but just short of being bold and interesting. By the time I got to the middle of the cigar, the flavor started to open up and I had hopes that I was approaching the fabled sweet spot. But alas, the draw began to falter and within a few short minutes the thing had gone out. Nearly half the cigar remained unsmoked. I threw in the towel. I'd gotten a decent, if not exciting, hour out of it, and lots of good conversation in between.

I'm starting to think that Churchills are just not my size. I'm well under six feet tall, and I probably lack the cubic mouth volume to draw properly on these oversized monsters. Guys who smoke Churchills should be bald, six-foot-five, with hair on their backs and cheeks the size of grapefruits. With one puff, they'll draw a quarter of an inch off the sucker. All that suction probably keeps the burn temperature high, ensuring a decent flavor and consistent burn.

Normal-sized guys like me should stick to robustos. Five inches of solid burn and flavor from the get-go, no waiting around for the first inch to turn into something real. And that if you're lucky.

The Quintero Churchill is a good cigar, maybe even a great one. I'm just not the right guy to smoke it.