AKA Hybrid

This week's review is of another cigar I haven't heard a lot about, the AKA Hybrid. AKA stands for American Kickass Cigars and is marketed as being a high quality boutique cigar with a fun, edgy nature. AKA cigars started in 2010. The Hybrid blend is composed of a 5 year aged hybrid seed wrapper that was cross bred between Cameroon and Corojo by the Eiroa family (Camacho),  a 4 year aged Dominican Ligero binder grown by the Kelner Family (Davidoff) and a filler composed of 4 and 5 Year Aged Dominican Piloto Cubano and Honduran Tobaccos from the Kelner and Eiroa Families. I am smoking the corona, which they call the ABS, or Advanced Brain Stimulation. This measures in at 6x44, which is more of a corona gorda, not a corona. 

The AKA Hybrid is a nice looking cigar with a flat brown wrapper with a few prominent veins. The bands are metallic and hard to photograph with a tribal design. The aroma at the foot is of aged tobacco and a woodsy character. Once clipped the draw is perfect and the cold draw has more of that musty wood flavor. Once lit, the AKA starts with a sweet, slightly dank woody flavor (not cedar). You can definitely taste the tobaccos from the Davidoff farm in this cigar. It has that dank wood/almost mushroom quality that I alway get out of Davidoff products. While the draw and burn are starting off great, I am having to double puff on this cigar to get a good mouthfull of smoke. I wouldn't say this tastes exactly like a Davidoff, It just has some of the characteristics I find in their cigars. There is a faint spice on the finish as well. 

At the halfway point the flavor profile is pretty much the same but with a little less of that dank characteristic and more of a solid woody core flavor. I am still having to double puff to get a good amount of smoke out of this cigar. This is a bit odd because the draw is perfect and its not overly humidified or anything like that, it has been sitting in my humidor at around 65% RH for a while. Entering the final third and the burnline has needed a minor touchup and the smoke production has gotten a little better. The flavor profile has shifted a bit as well, which was a welcomed change. Now I am getting a creamy coffee flavor and some walnut nuttyness. There is a still a woody core flavor present, but I am enjoying it much more now with the addition of the other flavors. This cigar started out medium bodied/strength and stayed that way up until the very end, where it moved into the medium full range as far as flavor and strength goes. 

The AKA Hybrid was an interesting cigar. It started with some of those Davidoff characteristics that I am not a fan of personally, but I know a lot of people love that flavor profile. I liked it more towards the end when it transitioned to the coffee and nutty flavor. Now the real question, would I buy these? This size sells for $8.50 and at that price there are others I would probably buy over this one. That being said, I can see where a lot of people would like this cigar because of some of the Davidoff characteristics I noted. I'm not saying this is a Davidoff substitute by any means, it just had some of those similar flavors.