An unranked editorial retrospective of lines available by 2021, informed by manufacturer accounts. These selections are not historical award results or firsthand tasting notes from cigars produced that year.
Ten, sixty, one hundred forty-nine: the numbers on this year’s bands tell very different stories. Undercrown celebrates a line’s anniversary, Rocky Patel marks a birthday, and Plasencia identifies a tobacco harvest. Our selection of the best cigars of 2021 follows those meanings into the blends behind them. Pasión adds a named Nicaraguan growing source, while returning cigars bring cask treatment and other family histories into a year unusually attentive to time.
Undercrown 10
Undercrown 10 marks the original line’s tenth anniversary through a separate blend. The standard expression combines Mexican wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf binder and Nicaraguan filler in Drew Estate’s description. Three origins give the milestone its material substance, extending the factory-centered family through a cigar made for the occasion.
Plasencia Cosecha 149
Cosecha 149 refers to Plasencia’s 149th tobacco harvest, associated with 2014; the cigar reached the market in 2021. The Honduran expression places agricultural time at the center of its story. Its number follows the family’s sequence of harvests, recording a stage in the leaf’s history before the finished cigar arrives.
Rocky Patel Sixty
Sixty celebrates Rocky Patel’s sixtieth birthday with Mexican San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and filler. The maker also identifies additional aging after rolling. That preparation gives time a second role in the cigar: the birthday provides the occasion, and patience with the finished product becomes part of the process.
La Aroma de Cuba Pasión
Shade-grown Nicaraguan wrapper from Namanji gives Pasión a specific agricultural beginning. Garcia family manufacturing carries that leaf into the La Aroma de Cuba range. The detail is especially useful because shade describes cultivation; here, the chosen wrapper’s home is Nicaragua, giving the method a distinct local expression.
E.P. Carrillo Pledge
Pledge joins American wrapper, Ecuadorian binder and Nicaraguan filler through E.P. Carrillo’s Dominican production. The recipe brings a broad geography to this year’s anniversary and harvest stories. Within the Carrillo range, those selected materials give the line a clear role alongside the different compositions of Encore and La Historia.
Fonseca by My Father
The Garcia family’s Fonseca carries its new Nicaraguan chapter into a second year. Introduced in 2020, the expression brings a modern manufacturing story to an older brand name. That specific lineage gives the cigar its place here, with the My Father designation identifying the work now behind it.
Joya de Nicaragua Número Uno
Número Uno offers Joya’s gentler Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapper expression and a history of diplomatic gifts before broader release. The number belongs to its name, adding a different kind of label to this year’s company. Its earlier private appearances give the cigar a story that begins before the nationwide rollout of 2019.
Plasencia Alma del Campo
Alma del Campo brings a Nicaraguan expression beside Cosecha 149’s Honduran tobacco. Plasencia’s more measured blend direction gives the family’s growing experience another outlet. The two cigars reveal breadth across both origin and purpose, with one centered on a harvest designation and the other on a separate blend concept.
Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour
The Late Hour makes time part of tobacco preparation through Scotch-cask-aged Nicaraguan leaf. Davidoff’s 2017 Winston Churchill expression gives this year a process to consider beside birthdays and anniversary dates. The cask treatment is a tangible stage of work, supplying a particular meaning to the idea of additional aging.
Perdomo 20th Anniversary Sun Grown
Perdomo’s twentieth-anniversary Sun Grown expression combines a company milestone with additional bourbon-barrel treatment of the wrapper. Its place beside Undercrown 10 and Sixty completes a revealing trio of occasions: company, cigar line and individual. The selected leaf and preparation give Perdomo’s tribute its particular form.
Looking back at 2021
The numbers become interesting once their stories are known. A harvest belongs to agriculture, a birthday to a person, and an anniversary to a continuing line or company. In 2021, the blends give those different measures of time something concrete to hold: selected leaf, additional preparation and a finished cigar.
Brand background, where linked, lives on Ashologist™ — The Study of Cigars.