An unranked editorial retrospective of lines available by 2019, informed by manufacturer accounts. These selections are not historical award results or firsthand tasting notes from cigars produced that year.
Ometepe island gives Alma del Fuego its regional focus. Tampa’s El Reloj factory gives The American a different connection to place. Between them, Número Uno moves toward a wider audience and Días de Gloria recalls an earlier Cuba through Nicaraguan cigar making. Our selection of the best cigars of 2019 follows those routes carefully, exploring how a growing region, a working factory and a remembered homeland can each shape the story of a cigar.
Plasencia Alma del Fuego
Introduced in 2019, Alma del Fuego makes tobacco from Nicaragua’s Ometepe island central to its expression. Plasencia narrows the geographical focus from country to region, giving the growing story greater detail. The line extends the family’s range through a particular source of leaf, with the island becoming part of how the blend is understood.
Joya de Nicaragua Número Uno
Número Uno reached nationwide release in 2019 after earlier appearances as diplomatic gifts and in more limited settings. Joya’s Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapper expression therefore arrives with a history already behind it. The wider release opens that previously restricted story to more smokers, giving the year a distinctive path from private presentation to the broader humidor.
J.C. Newman The American
The American ties American-grown tobacco to hand manufacture at J.C. Newman’s El Reloj factory in Tampa. Introduced in 2019, the cigar gives its name a concrete foundation in both agriculture and production. The connection to place runs through the material and the making, bringing a United States factory directly into this year’s story.
AJ Fernandez Días de Gloria
Días de Gloria looks toward an earlier Cuba through an AJ Fernandez cigar made in Nicaragua. The cultural tribute supplies the theme, while contemporary production gives it form. That distance between remembered place and present work is part of the original line’s appeal, carrying an inherited idea into a different setting.
E.P. Carrillo Encore
Encore uses entirely Nicaraguan tobacco in a cigar made in the Dominican Republic. E.P. Carrillo connects those two places through manufacturing, giving the line a different geographical structure from The American. Its clear composition reveals how a cigar’s agricultural origin and the home of its makers can contribute separately to the finished work.
Joya de Nicaragua Cinco Décadas
Cinco Décadas carries Joya’s fifty-year celebration beyond its 2018 introduction. The original anniversary line remains connected to that factory milestone while becoming part of the company’s continuing range. Its place beside Número Uno shows two ways a cigar reaches the public: through a commemorative launch and through the widening availability of an existing expression.
Joya Silver
A pressed shape and multinational blend distinguish Silver within Joya’s range. Beside Número Uno and Cinco Décadas, it gives the maker’s work another visible form. The three lines approach the humidor through different compositions and histories, revealing a factory whose range extends beyond any one signature cigar.
Foundation The Tabernacle Broadleaf
The original Tabernacle makes Connecticut Broadleaf central to Nicholas Melillo’s brand. Beside The American, it brings American-grown leaf into a different cigar-making story. The wrapper’s origin provides a meaningful connection between the two, while each line carries that leaf into a separate composition and manufacturing context.
San Cristobal Quintessence
Quintessence places Ecuadorian Habano wrapper within the continuing Ashton–Garcia collaboration. It adds a distinct origin and partnership to this year’s company of growing families and factory-centered stories. Within San Cristobal, the line shows how another carefully chosen wrapper expression can extend an established relationship.
Plasencia Alma Fuerte
The original dark-wrapper Alma Fuerte provides an earlier view of Plasencia’s own brand. Its Nicaraguan expression grows from the same family experience that underpins Alma del Fuego. The newer line’s Ometepe focus adds a more precise regional story, opening another part of the agricultural background behind the family name.
Looking back at 2019
Place carries several meanings in 2019. It can be the island where tobacco grows, the factory where a cigar is rolled or the country a maker remembers. These selections give each meaning its due, revealing the different ways a cigar can belong to somewhere.
Brand background, where linked, lives on Ashologist™ — The Study of Cigars.