Davidoff Cigars
Davidoff cigars are widely regarded as a top-shelf luxury selection. Handmade in the Dominican Republic, Davidoff offers a burgeoning portfolio of premium blends with a distinctly mellow and approachable profile. Each cigar is flawlessly constructed with enticing flavors connoisseurs choose for their rich signature of cedar, coffee and nuts and their smooth and creamy finishes.
CIGARS
Davidoff Aniversario
Price Per Cigar:$13.70 - $44.5016 options availableStrength: MildCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Connecticut12 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Cigarillos
Price Per Cigar:$0.79 - $0.996 options availableStrength: MildCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Sumatra12 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Escurio
Price Per Cigar:$11.10 - $22.3010 options availableStrength: Medium-FullCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Habano2 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Gift Packs
Price Per Cigar:$13.70 - $44.5047 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Varies10 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Grand Cru
Price Per Cigar:$15.60 - $30.6010 options availableStrength: MildCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Connecticut5 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Millennium Blend
Price Per Cigar:$18.70 - $34.5012 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Connecticut3 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Nicaragua
Price Per Cigar:$15.10 - $26.108 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Nicaraguan3 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Nicaragua Box Press
Price Per Cigar:$19.90 - $24.204 options availableStrength: FullCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Nicaraguan2 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Signature
Price Per Cigar:$14.60 - $27.3016 options availableStrength: MildCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Connecticut9 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Winston Churchill
Price Per Cigar:$15.10 - $26.408 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Connecticut7 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour
Price Per Cigar:$25.90 - $29.706 options availableStrength: Medium-FullCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Habano14 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Yamasa
Price Per Cigar:$15.50 - $26.8010 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Dominican8 Reviewsread more
Davidoff Year of the Snake
Price Per Cigar:Only $62.002 options availableStrength: MediumCountry: Dominican RepublicWrapper: Ecuador Habanoread more
SAMPLERS
DAVIDOFF BRAND HISTORY
Davidoff has been at the precipice of the luxury cigar market for decades. The company is technically called Davidoff of Geneva, an echo of the brand’s Swiss roots. Those familiar with Davidoff know its iconic white label cigar bands and plain, but elegant, boxes can only be found in select retail shops the brand identifies as “appointed White Label merchants.”
The company also operates a handful of signature Davidoff cigar shops around the world. Somewhat substantial prices accompany the status Davidoff cigars carry. Exclusivity is core to the company’s philosophy, as well as their overall strategy of positioning their products before a more or less affluent audience.
Davidoff’s image readily communicates prestige in a similar way as other instantly recognizable brands like Mercedes-Benz and Louis Vuitton – whose universal allure is perceived by many who may never own a product from the company. Davidoff has carved out its sophisticated niche in the cigar industry, although the company manufactures a number of other products aimed at the high-end consumer market, including cigarettes, coffee, leather goods, watches, cognac, and fragrances. Davidoff Cool Water cologne is perhaps one of the company’s best-known non-tobacco products. Although Davidoff cigars are considered a premier Dominican offering today, their origins reside in Cuba like a number of well-known Cuban-legacy labels.
Brand founder Zino Davidoff was born in 1906 in Kiev in the Ukraine. His family fled to Geneva in 1911 to escape pogroms in Czarist Russia. His father, Henri, opened a small tobacco shop shortly after their arrival. The shop became a place where exiled enemies of the Czar routinely rendezvoused. One such visitor, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, stood out to the young Zino, as he was never charged for his cigarettes. Later, this intriguing customer would change his name to Vladimir Lenin. A number of statesmen and illustrious historical figures have visited the Davidoff shop over the decades.
As a young man, Zino opted to travel the world, as opposed to attending university. Penniless, he journeyed to Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba. There, he immersed himself in a love for tobacco that would last his entire life. He gained tremendous insight into the growing, cultivation, and aging processes behind the finest Cuban cigars. Upon his return to Europe in 1930, Zino set about expanding his father’s already popular tobacco business into the realm of cigars. He has been credited with introducing the use of humidors in Europe, as a means of preserving the integrity of cigars sold in his father’s shop.
As the 1930s progressed, Zino married and began a family. His relationships with Cuban cigar manufacturers blossomed into a profitable enterprise. Davidoff was given charge of a large Cuban cigar warehouse in Paris before the Germans invaded France. As a result, Davidoff enjoyed a monopoly of sorts over Havana cigars in the European market. The popularity of Cubans quickly grew and many cigar lovers regularly ventured to Geneva to purchase them at the Davidoff shop.
By the close of WWII, the European cigar market had largely been dominated by manufacturers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Zino presented a shrewd strategy to his Cuban suppliers, who were focused on greatly expanding their European presence: naming cigars after the legendary “Grand Cru” wines of Bordeaux. Designations such as “Chateau Haut-Brion,” “Chateau Lafite,” “Chateau Latour,” and “Chateau Margaux” connected these cigars to the pedigrees of renowned wine-making estates in the eyes of consumers.
This naming convention was not merely successful, rather, it birthed an enterprise and level of demand so robust, even the Cuban Revolution in 1959 failed to disturb commerce. Fine Havana cigars enjoyed an unprecedented degree of prestige and prominence in Europe. Davidoff still produces a Dominican-made Grand Cru series today.
In the mid-1960s, a publisher approached Zino to release a book, with the help of a ghostwriter, on his extensive cigar knowledge. Although he was disinterested in pursuing the project at first, The Connoisseur’s Book of the Cigar appeared first in 1967. The work is an homage to fine cigars and Zino’s unquestioned affinity for them.
By the end of the 1960s, Zino’s Cuban suppliers offered to create a signature line of Davidoff cigars to commemorate his many contributions and his dedication. In 1970 the first Davidoff-named cigars premiered: “Davidoff No. 1,” “Davidoff No. 2,” and the “Ambassadrice.” In the same year, at the height of his success, Zino sold his business to the Oettinger family of Basel, Switzerland. He enjoyed an enduring relationship with the new owners and continued to serve the company as a brand ambassador throughout the remainder of his life.
By the end of the 1980s, Zino had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the quality and consistency of Cuban cigars. He publicly burned thousands of Cuban cigars in 1989 for their lack of quality, a move that infuriated the Cuban government and forever severed their ties to Zino. Despite the production-related issues that compromised relations between Davidoff and the island nation, Cuban Davidoff cigars have been highly sought-after for decades and often command large sums when they’re available at auctions.
By the early 1990s, all Davidoff production had been shifted to the Dominican Republic, where the expertise of master cigar-maker Hendrik (Henke) Kelner would guide a new chapter of Davidoff cigars through the following decades, as well as into the U.S. market. Kelner is considered a tobacco expert, while his right-hand man, Eladio Diaz, manages processing and production.
Zino Davidoff passed away on January 14, 1994, at the age of 88. His legacy as the quintessential gentleman and cigar lover continues to this day around the world in the extensive portfolio of fine cigars and luxury consumer goods that Davidoff produces.
DAVIDOFF BRAND OVERVIEW
With the premiere of Cigar Aficionado Magazine and the advent of the Cigar Boom of the 1990s, Davidoff’s transition into the U.S. market couldn’t have enjoyed better timing. Under the direction of Henke Kelner, Davidoff established its first Dominican-made cigars in the U.S. market with a creamy, mild profile inspired by Zino Davidoff himself. The initial blend was called Davidoff Classic and consisted of an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper leaf over a core of all-Dominican binder and filler tobaccos. In recent years, the brand has introduced a number of new lines and focused on a rebranding campaign of sorts. As a result, Davidoff Classic no longer resides in the company’s product menu online, however, a handful of Davidoff reflect a similar profile. Davidoff Signature represents a combination of the Classic and Mille (or Thousand) Series in a unified blend that offers parallel tastes.
Perhaps the longest-tenured blends in the brand’s present catalog are Davidoff Aniversario and Davidoff Grand Cru, a steadily sought-after Dominican-made reflection of Zino Davidoff’s original Cuban Grand Cru series. Both blends are drafted from similar components: a golden-blond Connecticut-seed wrapper leaf grown in Ecuador over an all-Dominican center of long-filler tobaccos. While each cigar expresses a tapestry of mild, approachable flavors, Davidoff Aniversario displays an enhanced profile of wood, mushrooms and earth, whereas Davidoff Grand Cru furnishes tasting notes of wet straw, hay and nuts. Davidoff Aniversario No. 3 and Special R (for Robusto) have become iconic cigars over the years and are among the company’s top-selling individual sizes.
As consumers’ tastes shifted towards cigars that are fuller in body, the brand steadily shifted away from strictly making traditionally mild cigars to releases like Davidoff Maduro and Davidoff Millenium. Davidoff Maduro is drafted from an all-Dominican blend with a patiently fermented wrapper leaf that delivers notes of chocolate and coffee beans. Millenium offers a medium-bodied profile of nutmeg, dark chocolate, and white pepper with an extra-dark Ecuador Connecticut wrapper leaf and an interior of aged Dominican long fillers.
Davidoff Puro d’Oro also arose to capture the attention of cigar lovers with a taste for a slightly stronger smoke. The all-Dominican blend features a lustrous wrapper leaf with notes of earth, mushrooms, coffee with cream, and a touch of damp spices.
More contemporary Davidoff cigars include the 95-rated Davidoff Nicaragua, a former ‘#3 Cigar of the Year’ in Cigar Aficionado, and the 92-rated Davidoff Winston Churchill. The company sought to absorb some of the increasing demand for Nicaraguan cigars a few years back. Davidoff Nicaragua was developed with 100% Nicaraguan tobaccos, including a Cuban-seed Oscuro wrapper leaf that displays a complex peppery and creamy twist with a rich aroma.
Davidoff could not possibly ignore the world’s foremost cigar-smoking statesman and former patron of the brand’s Geneva shop, Winston Churchill. The commemorative cigar is blended from a multinational recipe of Dominican, Nicaraguan, and Mexican tobaccos beneath an elegant Ecuador Connecticut wrapper leaf. Notes of coffee beans and cedar accompany sweet spices in a medium-bodied profile. An enhanced edition, Davidoff Winston Churchill Late Hour, was created to honor the wee hours Churchill frequently spent thinking, discussing, and writing under the cover of evening. An oily Ecuador Habano wrapper leaf conceals a core of Nicaraguan tobaccos, some of which have been aged in single malt scotch casks. Minerals, leather, and notes of sweet grasses harbor a well-rounded spice.
Trendier, lifestyle-themed releases include Davidoff Escurio and Davidoff Yamasa. Escurio celebrates the spark and excitement of Brazilian nightlife with an Ecuador Habano wrapper leaf and select long-fillers from the Dominican Republic and Brazil in a medium-bodied, sweet and spicy blend. Yamasa calls attention to the Yamasa region in the Dominican Republic, an area untapped for tobacco growth until recently. Notes of cedar, wood and black pepper display a rich distinctiveness with a wrapper leaf and binder tobaccos that are grown in Yamasa, along with fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
Due the company’s extensive portfolio, you may be overwhelmed in deciding what Davidoff cigars to buy if this is your first time tasting the brand. A handful of Davidoff samplers, like the Davidoff 9-Cigar Assortment create a great starting point. Keep in mind, the Davidoff brand can be a bit spendy with prices that routinely shoot well over the $15 and $25 thresholds for a single cigar. We always recommend checking out our Davidoff reviews for added insight into your decision.
Davidoff is a brand that often caters to those with opulent tastes. When you’re in need of a top-shelf gift for your favorite connoisseur, Davidoff is great for communicating that you went the distance and spent some dough, or simply that you wanted to get something extravagant to celebrate a special occasion. The company produces a number of high-end accessories including Davidoff humidors, lighters, cutters, and ashtrays that guarantee to impress any guest or gift recipients on your list.
Additionally, Davidoff of Geneva is the parent company of the Avo, Camacho, Cusano, and The Griffin’s brands for Davidoff fans who are curious to try alternative cigars in the company’s portfolio, or perhaps are looking for offerings that are simply less expensive.
When you’re prepared to splurge on cigars from the upper echeleon of reputation, price, and prestige, access the extensive and regal legacy of Zino Davidoff today.
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