Cutting to the Core at BRB Solaire With Davidoff’s Uncut Robusto Colección Cigars

Some smokers know exactly what they’re after. Maybe something light and composed to start the evening. Something darker, with a bit more edge, once the night settles in. And then, for those who prefer to skip the pleasantries entirely, something fuller. Wood, spice, a slower kind of intensity that lingers, all that.

Davidoff has long understood this spectrum. The Grand Cru, in particular, is for restraint. The Nicaragua, on the other hand, enjoys more structure and weight. The Winston Churchill Late Hour, for those who prefer their cigars with a bit more presence. Three profiles, three moods—familiar territory for anyone who’s spent time in a proper humidor.

At BRB in Solaire Resort Entertainment City, those same cigars arrive slightly altered. The Solaire Uncut Robusto Colección removes the usual introduction. No finished foot, no wrapper easing you in. You light it and begin with the filler (the literal core of the cigar) before the wrapper eventually joins in. It’s a small adjustment, but it alters the experience more than you think.

“A cigar is three components—you have the filler, the binder, and the wrapper,” explains Jacob Policarpio of Zino Manila Inc., Davidoff’s exclusive distributor in the Philippines. “The filler and the binder are the strength of the cigar. The wrapper creates the balance.”

Which means the order, suddenly, matters. “So what you’re tasting at the start is the pure strength first,” he says. “Then once you burn to the wrapper, you will experience a flavor change. That is noticeable.”

That sense of progression carried through the evening, not just in the cigars but in the whisky that accompanied them. The launch, staged as part of BRB’s Leaf & Barrel series, put together five whiskies, poured in sequence, each one nudging the cigar in a slightly different direction.

Simon Côté of High Proof Spirits, likewise, led the whisky pairing portion. “We always try to bring the best possible whiskies that represent new categories.” The lineup leaned heavily on Westward, an American single malt from Oregon, which is still something of a novelty in a market that tends to default to Scotch or bourbon.

“It’s about a sense of place,” Côté explains. “In the Pacific Northwest, you have some of the best barley in the country. So naturally, you make a single malt that reflects that.” The process borrows from Scottish tradition (double distillation, careful maturation), but finishes in new American oak, giving it a profile that feels both familiar and slightly off-axis.

The first pour, the Westward Original, arrives with a softness that works almost immediately with the Grand Cru. There’s a gentle sweetness there, something like malted biscuits or even a faint banana note, which Côté himself acknowledges with a shrug. “Maybe banana, maybe not, but there’s a round sweetness.” Against the cigar’s initial, unfiltered strength, it acts as a counterweight, smoothing edges without dulling them.

As the wrapper begins to burn in on the Grand Cru, the pairing tightens. The whisky’s light spice and grain sweetness mirror the cigar’s shift toward creamier, nuttier notes. Nothing clashes.

The second whisky, drawn from stout cask finishes, changes the tone entirely. “You get those coffee notes, chocolate, a bit of bitterness,” Côté adds. This is where the Nicaragua Robusto comes into its own. The cigar’s darker profile, with earthy and peppery notes on the heavier side of things, finds an easy partner in the whisky’s roasted character. The bitterness just sharpens the Robusto (Nicaraguan tobacco, after all, is grown in volcanic soil, which gives it that rich, mineral-heavy, punchy identity right from the first draw).

Here, the uncut format feels especially deliberate. That first inch of exposed filler leans into the whisky’s intensity, while the arrival of the wrapper brings a kind of order—cocoa notes in the cigar echoing the whisky’s chocolate, the finish stretching just a little longer.

By the time the Winston Churchill Late Hour enters the rotation, the structure of the evening becomes clearer. Each tracks evolution. The Late Hour, already the most robust of the three cigars, leans into wood, spice, and a faint smokiness. Paired with a more assertive cask-finished whisky, the combination enriches the tasting experience. Not subtle. Not overwhelming either. The whisky simply amplifies what’s already there.

Policarpio, for his part, keeps returning to the same point. “This is not something you normally find,” he says. “Usually, this kind of cigar is only in the factory. You can ask a roller to make one for you, but it’s not part of a regular line.” Which, in a room like this, full of people who have likely tried everything else, matters more than it sounds.

BRB has built its reputation on scale—hundreds of whiskies, an expansive cigar list—but nights like this suggest a quieter direction. Less about having everything, more about showing why certain things are worth having at all. “Once you hit the wrapper, you will notice the difference,” Policarpio says of the cigar, and perhaps in another sense, the rest of the evening.

The Solaire Uncut Robusto Colección by Davidoff is available here.