Davidoff Year of the Snake (2025) review: what the critics and smokers say

What the 2025 Year of the Snake is

It's a 7 x 43 lancero, a long, thin size, sold in boxes of 10 at a list price of $62 a cigar, or $620 a box. Davidoff made 17,500 boxes, and 4,200 of them were allocated to the U.S. It went on sale November 14, 2024, ahead of the Lunar New Year.

The wrapper and binder are Ecuadorian. The filler is Dominican and Mexican. Davidoff says it's the first time it has used a Dominican hybrid seed 98 tobacco from the Martín García area, and only the second time it has put Mexican tobacco in the filler of a Davidoff blend.

It's also the second Year of the Snake. The first cigar in Davidoff's official zodiac series, in 2013, was a Year of the Snake too, in a different size with a different blend. Some of what turns up when you search the name is about the 2013, so check the year on anything you read.

What the critics scored it

Cigar Coop later put it at #28 on its 2025 Cigar of the Year countdown.

They agree on the shape of it: medium body, never strong. Where they split is whether it comes together. Cigar Coop wrote that it "excels in the most critical category: flavor" and called it probably the best Davidoff zodiac cigar since the 2018 Year of the Dog. halfwheel found a cigar that kept moving between profiles and "felt like it was searching to find something that worked," with spots where the smoke turned sharp or the flavor too tangy.

Flavor: Davidoff's notes and the reviewers' notes

Davidoff describes "lemon, leather and coffee," wrapped in creaminess, and calls the profile "quite unusual" for a Davidoff. It credits the Dominican San Vicente and Mexican Negro San Andrés filler tobaccos for the lemony side. In Davidoff's own pairing notes, the lemon comes at the start and the leather and coffee arrive in the second and last thirds.

The critics wrote down different words. Cigar Coop found natural tobacco, cedar, earth, black pepper and fruit, with earth and pepper building toward the end. halfwheel found dry crackers, pepper and dry wood early, then a dried-fruit sweetness, baking spices, nuts and toast, and called parts of it "strangely tangy." That tang is as close as either critic came to Davidoff's lemon.

Reddit smokers mostly didn't mention lemon. One r/cigars smoker did, and found "a weird lemon character" they didn't care for. They planned to try another after some time in the humidor. Another picked up citrus and wood at the start, then bitter coffee, and didn't finish it. Others described pepper turning to creamy leather, or leather and oak the whole way through.

How strong is it?

Strength here means nicotine, the physical effect. Body means how heavy the smoke feels. They're rated separately, and the cigar strength, body and flavor guide explains the difference.

On paper this is a mild-to-medium cigar. Neither critic rated it above medium, and halfwheel's reviewer wrote, "I can't say I felt much nicotine strength."

Some smokers disagree, and not quietly. An r/cigars post titled "Tonight's Smoke" called it "Challenging" and said it knocked the poster flat, and they described themselves as no lightweight. A commenter on the same thread, who didn't like the cigar, said the same thing happened to them and they sat in the lounge 20 minutes before they could leave. At r/cigar_refuge, another smoker found it "bolder than I expected."

We can't tell you why the reports are that far apart. If you're sensitive to nicotine, eat first and take it slowly.

Construction and smoking time

Construction reports are mixed. Cigar Coop rated the burn and draw excellent, with a straight burn and no excessive touch-ups. halfwheel's three cigars drew a little firm and needed relights in the second half, even after one spent time drying out. On Reddit, one smoker needed a few touch-ups, which they called "rare for Davidoff." Another needed touch-ups early in a first cigar, then touch-ups for canoeing, a burn that runs ahead down one side, at the start of a second. That smoker called burning hot and going out easily "familiar symptoms of a lancero."

Davidoff lists the smoking time as 40 to 60 minutes. The reviewers took a lot longer. halfwheel averaged 2 hours 25 minutes across its three cigars, and an r/cigar_refuge smoker who said they smoke slowly took 1 hour 35. Plan on an evening.

2013 Year of the Snake vs. 2025

The 2013 was a 7 x 48 cigar at $29.90, sold in boxes of 8, with 4,500 boxes made. Cigar Aficionado scored it 88. Cigar Coop ranked it the #2 cigar of 2013 and #3 of the decade from 2010 to 2019.

The 2025 is a new blend in a thinner size, at about twice the 2013's price per cigar. Cigar Coop, which liked the 2025, still put it well below the original and called the 2013 "a near once-in-a-generation type of smoke." One r/cigars smoker who has had the 2013, the 2025 lancero and the 2025 Toro called all three excellent and named the 2013 their favorite, noting a black tea flavor in both years.

Lancero, Flagship Toro or Gran Toro

The lancero is the size regular shops sell, ours included. Davidoff made two others from the same blend, and that's where the "box of 24" you may see mentioned comes from.

Flagship Exclusive Toro. 6 x 52, $89 a cigar, boxes of 24, 600 boxes made with half for the U.S. It's sold only in Davidoff of Geneva's own flagship stores. The one r/cigars review of it we found described it as creamy and a little floral, with Turkish coffee spice and black tea in the finish. Ring gauge is the diameter in 64ths of an inch, so 52 against 43 is a much thicker cigar. Robusto vs. Toro covers how to read the numbers.

Gran Toro. 6 x 56, sold only inside the Year of the Snake Masterpiece Humidor: 25 humidors of 88 cigars, at $49,000 each.

Is it worth $62?

That's the question in most of the threads. "Were they a solid buy at around 70$ a stick?" one r/cigars reader asked. Another passed on it at their local shop because of sticker shock. The price complaint comes up more than any flavor complaint in what we read.

Part of it is the series. At list price, halfwheel's record of Davidoff's zodiac releases runs $42 for the 2022 Year of the Tiger, $50 for the 2023 Rabbit, $59 for the 2024 Dragon, $62 for the Snake and $65 for the 2026 Horse. The 2013 Snake was $29.90.

Within the series, the Snake lands in the middle for Reddit. In one r/cigars thread, one smoker put it ahead of the Rabbit and Dragon and behind the Tiger and Ox, and said it's worth trying "if you can justify $70." The Tiger came up most as a favorite in that thread. A longtime box buyer there said they quit after the Dragon because the series had started to feel like "a cash grab." And if you're thinking of a box as something to resell later, the most-upvoted reply in another r/cigars thread opened with "Cigars are never a good investment," though it added that the series had been good to excellent.

Here's how we'd buy it. With the critics eight points apart and strength reports running from not much nicotine to twenty minutes in a lounge chair, a box is $620 at list for a cigar you haven't smoked. Smoke one first. That's also what an r/cigar_refuge commenter told someone deciding on a box: get a box of something else and "a single of the snake." In the shop in Jessup we sell it by the single. Online, we list it by the box of 10.