7x10 best cigars 2021
It’s that time of the year again. The much anticipated “Top 25” and “Best Cigar Of The Year” lists never fail to agitate the cigar community. Whether you love them, loathe them, criticize the choices made or simply take it with a pinch of salt: the trophy season offers plenty of discussion material.
While certain reviews and ratings seem to have more of an entertainment value, others tend to focus on inspiring and guiding actual purchasing decisions. Ratings and reviews can be a burden and a blessing at the same time, in any case. For some brands it might even be make or break, a #1 Cigar of the year title could literally change a business overnight.
Having said that, one might argue that very few publications or rankings have the impetus to move the sales needle significantly. The sheer number of such announcements though has grown into a spectacular panopticon. Whether within their own ecosystem or respective bubble, on a national or even international level, there’s plenty of lists out there and plenty of tastes to align with or dissociate from.
Halfwheel’s Consensus has been a great source of meta-perspective guidance for many years, offering - please allow me to quote Charlie himself - “simultaneously the most complete and most flawed top 25 cigars list”.
We kindly wanted to give you a different yet just as comprehensive overview of some of the most widely acknowledged Top lists, compiled into a neat 7 x 10 matrix. Most of the platforms create a Top 25 list, however, we set to focus on the top-ranked cigars to keep it short and sweet.
As we did last year, the graphic visualisation of the matrix offers an interesting look and insight, at a glance.
The origin is represented by the respective flag. Cigars that made it multiple times into the top selection have the same color shading.
Probably the most important factor is the different criteria the publications have applied. While some try to be 100% transparent about the eligibility and guidelines, others simply put out a list of their top picks, without specifying the rationale or reason behind their choices. For transparency reasons, we included all criteria which we could find towards the end of our article.
Cigar Aficionado and Cigar Journal, the most widely acknowledged and distributed magazines, have tried and tested processes in place that host an eclectic panel of seasoned industry professionals for their tastings. Whereas Cigar Journal purely focuses on blind evaluations spread amongst their global panelists, the Aficionado team is a much smaller panel that re-asseses the top picks of the year multiple teams to come to a conclusion.
Cigar Coop’s William Cooper is a prime example of transparency and clear communication. His detailed explanation offers good insights into how the final choices have been made. Cigar Dojo also features a solid article about their set of criteria and voting process.
Blind Man’s Puff takes a slightly different approach when putting together their Top 25 Cigars of the Year. It is not simply a consolidation of the top scoring cigars, but rather a subjective vote of the reviewers on what they enjoyed the most over the past 12 months.
Cigar & Spirits Magazine offers two different Top 20 lists, one for the Top 20 Cigars of the year and a separate for the Top 20 Boutique Cigars of the year. That being said, I didn’t find any criteria as to which category a certain cigar, brand or manufacturer should be assigned to. As a matter of fact, there’s no explanation about how the final selection is being put together. It would be nice to better understand the list and its intentions by learning more about the concept and methods behind it.
With Cigar Vixen, the selection seems to be a rather subjective collection as well, highlighting Delicia Silva’s personal favorites. I could barely find any information, maybe partially because the website is somewhat outdated and only highlights older top lists from years past. In 2021, Delicia put her Top 5 Cigars of the Year on social media only, which is also the smallest sample set of our matrix overall.
What we learned
What immediately strikes the eye is a rather dominant blue and white across the board. Perfectly in line with the most recent market evolution, production as well as exportation numbers: Nicaragua is the clear No. 1. Taking into consideration that almost all publishers are based in the US, it’s obvious that Cuba plays a minor role in the bigger picture, despite Cigar Aficionado’s and Cigar Journal’s comprehensive coverage of the old cigar Mekka.
The other dominant factor is ring gauges. As with the countries of origin, a somewhat obvious market trend seems to be well reflected by the matrix. With large formats taking a much bigger role overall, the most popular vitolas are Toro and Robusto. The occasional Arturo Fuente percecto shape or almost out-of-style Coronas, Lonsdales and Co. are few and far between.
Other than that, the lists paint a heterogenous picture of cigar lines, brands and factories. Even though it feels somewhat random on the surface, it’s a rather enthralling supposition of the eclectic array of top quality cigars on the market today. Personal taste preferences aside, there’s plenty of choice and a multitude of excellent cigars to be savored – from vintage cigars to absolute newcomers. Consequently, a substantial number of brand owners or manufacturers have top-notch products, seriously competing for a Top 25 or even Best Cigar of the year spot.
Based on pure numbers, Rocky Patel took the number 1 spot across our 7x10 matrix. With five mentions the brand was featured the most, closely followed by Drew Estate with four entries, largely because of their popular Undercrown 10 release in 2021. Despite the sheer endless number of SKUs in Rocky Patel Premium Cigar’s portfolio, they all come under the Rocky Patel name, which strongly support the brand recognition in such compilations and consolidations. Things become a little less clear and concise when moving away from the brand name and looking at the factory performance. In that light, one can see the rise of Tabacalera de Garcia in the Dominican Republic or Aganorsa Leaf’s TABSA factory in Nicaragua, manufacturing a wide selection of handmade premium cigars, though under various brand names (like Montecristo or Aging Room in the first case, or Illusione, Aganorsa Leaf, etc. in the second case). It comes as no surprise that A.J. Fernandez and Plasencia earn their accolades as reliable manufacturers for other brands, beside their own core portfolio.
Long story short, one could argue about the ins and outs of the top 25 list, rankings, reviews and ratings all year long. We need to differentiate between analytical tasting for sensory evaluation, and reviewing cigars openly both entertainment and educational purposes, even to help consumers make a more thoroughly revised purchasing decision.
Just like last year’s ranking it was again a very exciting exercise to gather all the information and look at the bigger picture. Not only is it fun to do but also providing more thorough insights and a holistic perspective on the industry and its evolution.
We always hope to bring value to you, our dear friends and Light ‘em Up family. Let us know your thoughts and your favorite cigar of the year.
For further reference I also want to share the rating criteria of all publishers:
Appendix: Rating criteria
Cigar Coop:
The cigar must have been released in a two-year window for release ending the day before the PCA trade show of the current calendar year. While there was not a PCA Trade Show, the planned date was still used. Cigars are not limited to a new line, but new vitolas for existing lines are eligible.
For 2020: July 9, 2019, through July 8, 2020
The cigar still must be assessed one year prior to November 1st of the current calendar year.
For 2021: Cigar Must Have Been Reviewed on Cigar Coop between November 1, 2020 – October 31, 2021
Exclusions from Eligibility
Shop and Chain Exclusives, including Cigar Club exclusives
Regional Releases within a single country
Event Cigars
Branded-Lounge Exclusive Cigars
TAA
Re-issued lines with the same blend
For the 2021 Countdown, a minimum score of 90 must have been achieved for consideration for the Countdown
All decisions on whether a cigar qualifies for the list or not are final and not open to change once the list begins publishing.
Further details can be found here: https://cigar-coop.com/2021/12/announcement-criteria-for-the-2021-cigar-of-the-year-countdown.html
Cigar Dojo:
“We only included Cigar Dojo’s Top 10 Cigars of the Year, however they also published their Top 5 Limited Edition Cigars as well as Exceptional Awards.
Top 10 COTY List
Regular production (no limited editions, shop exclusives, etc. — ongoing, small-batch production is accepted)
Sold in the USA
Released in 2021 (this is perhaps the most important factor—without this distinction, a year-end list may as well be called “Top Cigars We Happened to Be into This Year”)
To assemble this list, each member of the Cigar Dojo staff (a panel of nine for 2021), including contributing reviewers, builds their own, personal ranking of the top 10 cigars of 2021 (using the guidelines listed above). Cigars are then given points, with the no. 1 cigar receiving 10 points, the no. 2 cigar receiving 9 points, etc. Cigars that do not receive at least two votes are then discarded, ensuring that an outlier cannot enter the list simply because it receives 10 points from a single vote. After the points are tallied, the top 20 cigars are then tweaked by Cigar Dojo’s founding members, Eric and Jordan Guttormson, ensuring all picks are consistent with the culture Cigar Dojo has worked to cultivate since 2012.
It should be noted that this year’s list marks the first time that we have not included a price cap. We’ve found that the regular production qualifier tends to weed out most top-dollar cigars on its own. And on the occasional chance that such a cigar is eligible, we wouldn’t want to exclude it simply based on our presumptions of other hobbyists’ budgets. This rule was originally put in place to make it as easy as possible for the average cigar smoker to acquire the entire Top 10, but we now feel that being regular production is enough to accomplish our goal.”
https://cigardojo.com/2022/01/cigar-of-the-year-guidelines-2021/
Blind Man’s Puff
Every year we put together a list of our Top 25 Cigars of the Year. Our list is a bit different from some other lists, it is not simply a rehashing of our top scores from the year, or one person’s opinion. We gave each of our panelists 10 votes to cast how they please for what they enjoyed the most in 2021. The order of their votes matter, so their #1 pick is worth twice as much as #10. The cigars do not have to have been reviewed by Blind Man’s Puff, but the panelist must have smoked it. To qualify for a vote, the cigar must have been released in 2021 with a few exceptions:
Re-releases of old brands are eligible
New sizes in blends that already existed are eligible
Lines that were not previously introduced to the US but became available in 2021 are eligible
Cigars that had a limited release to beat the FDA deadline and got a wide release this year are ok.
Limited production cigars that turned regular production are ok.
Annual limited releases are ok.
Here is a full sortable list of the top 25 cigars with links to the ones we have reviewed or have news articles about:
Cigar Aficionado
Step 1
We review the highest-scoring cigars from the past year and assemble a new tasting of only these cigars.
Step 2
Repurchase, re-band and then re-smoke the cigars blind—tasters don’t know the identity of the cigar.
Step 3
The top-scoring cigars are then smoked against each other through multiple rounds.
Step 4
A new list of 25 cigars is assembled.
https://www.cigaraficionado.com/top25/2021
Cigar Journal
Of the hundreds of cigars we smoke each year for Cigar Journal’s tastings, some leave a lasting impression. At the end of the year, we take time to revisit the most exceptional cigars. Our Top 25 list features the cigars we consider our absolute favorites.
Only the cigars that were released less than two years ago were eligible for selection.
https://www.cigarjournal.com/ratings-awards/
This is it – I hope you enjoyed the read.
With my very best wishes and spirits,
light ‘em up!
Reinhard
Sensory expert, cigar passionado, and host of the Light ‘em Up Lounge
