Chateau Diadem Monkey Business Robusto (Bundle of 10)

• Length: 127mm
• Gauge: 50
• Flavour: Light - Medium
• Wrapper: Dominican
• Binder: Dominican
• Filler: Dominican medium-length filler
• Hand Rolled Cigars
• Humidor Advised

Château Diadem Monkey Business Robusto – Bundle of 10

Monkey Business is Château Diadem's answer to a rather sensible question: does every handmade cigar need to arrive in an expensive wooden box?

Apparently not.

These are made at the Château Diadem factory in Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, but use a medium-length filler construction rather than the full leaves required for a conventional long-filler cigar. The result is a considerably more affordable handmade cigar, neatly bundled in tens rather than dressed up for a state banquet.

The Robusto measures 5 inches by 50 ring gauge, arguably the most useful size in the Monkey Business range. It is broad enough to give the blend some room to develop, yet remains a manageable smoke of roughly 45–55 minutes.

Current UK specifications give a Dominican wrapper, binder and filler, producing a medium-strength cigar with a distinctly Dominican character. Cedar and woody notes lead, followed by warm spice, a little earthiness and restrained sweetness. More importantly, the strength remains fairly steady from beginning to end, so there's little danger of an apparently friendly Robusto suddenly picking a fight in the final inch.

Each cigar is handmade and individually cellophane wrapped, with ten packed together in the wonderfully cheerful Monkey Business bundle. The packaging makes no attempt at cigar-industry grandeur: bright green, red and purple artwork, a large monkey and the useful information printed plainly on the front – Robusto 50 x 5", 10 Medium-Filler Cigars, Handmade in Dominican Republic by Château Diadem.

Buying them by the bundle rather suits the point of Monkey Business. These aren't intended to spend six years staring back at you from the top shelf of the humidor while you wait for an occasion sufficiently important to light one. They're approachable, medium-strength handmade cigars intended to be smoked regularly.

Ten cigars, ten bits of cellophane and one enormous red monkey.

At least nobody wasted the budget embossing a coat of arms onto a mahogany chest.