HAPPIEST ANNIVERSARIES

When it comes to fine smokes, "anniversario" blends just keep getting better with time

- G. CLAY WHITTAKER

The local tobacco shop’s humidor can be a nebulous shopping experience. “Family blend” and “reserva” are as ubiquitous in those cedar-lined rooms these days as the gold and silver foil embossing every label and box. If you can’t find your go-to brands or blends or just want to try something new, it’s usually best to look at the numbers. This isn’t a sermon on price-comparison shopping, and trying to get you more smoke for your stacks. This is about anniversario cigars—cigars blended and released to celebrate a company’s milestone.

Cigarmakers often see business through the lens of survival. Between government crackdowns on their products and a generations ago exodus from Cuba that saw many of today’s great names starting over—with a handful of seeds in unfamiliar lands—every year of making great tobacco can feel like it comes against all odds. So when they put out a new robusto or torpedo to celebrate it, the tobacco under the band is almost always some of the best they’ve got. Cigarmakers handle anniversary smokes in essentially three ways.

First, a cigarmaker may simply add a special commemorative band to their existing products, and move on with business. No, it’s not terribly exciting, but creates a fun bit of celebratory ambiance, and some of these releases can quickly gain cult-like status among collectors.

The second approach many cigarmakers take is to create a new vitola (size) for an existing blend. Padrón has done this on numerous occasions, though the Fuentes and their Opus X series would have to be the most notorious issues of new vitolas. You’ve probably enjoyed something from this collection, never to see or hear of it again.