I had previously seen in an industry mag that Mike Ditka was lending his name to a line of cigars called the “Kickoff Series”. Today at the cigar shop I was pointed in their direction. I was excited to see what Comacho and coach Ditka had come up with. There are three versions, “The Player”, “The Coach” and “The Hall of Famer”. Each one comes in a decorative box denoting the line and size. All three lines come in Toro (6 x 50) Robusto ( 5 x 50) Torpedo ( 6 1/4 x 54) and the big gun of the line, a 6 x 60. The Player and The Coach are both medium bodied smokes but with different wrappers and binders. Should you want to step up your game there’s The Hall of Famer, this one is a full bodied smoke. I purchased The Coach and The Hall of Famer.
It’s a rare warm day in January so I knew I’d be smoking a stogie on the Big Ash porch this afternoon. I chose to go with The Coach robusto and save The Hall of Famer for a later time.
As I usually do, I took a pre-lit sniff. It smelled of cinnamon and chocolate. It draws wonderfully and immediately produced big, thick amounts of smoke which continued the entire time. At a couple points I detected the distinct flavor of chocolate. The ash was dark grey and held on for an inch 1/4 before falling off. The Coach lasted me about 75 minutes and was very enjoyable. Comacho did a solid job on this, as I figured they would, I mean C’mon, would you want to disapoint coach Ditka? In the end I would say it’s worth trying a stick yourself. I give The Coach 4 ashes out of 5. Not bad, Mike, not bad.
The Big Ash 