Cigar Aficionado

Once the hearty brunch sponsored by Oliva Cigar Co. on Saturday morning concluded, it was time for the Big Smoke Las Vegas seminars to formally begin. Plates were cleared and guests eagerly went to find seats in the adjoining ballroom. Cigar Aficionado staffers were at the ready, passing out Boveda bags containing a selection of six cigars to be enjoyed throughout the seminars, including the top three cigars from Cigar Aficionado’s Top 25 list of 2024.

Executive editor David Savona ascended the stage to greet the crowd of nearly 600 people in attendance. He told the room this marked Cigar Aficionado’s 29th Las Vegas Big Smoke and how the event’s mission of bringing cigar lovers together has been so successful, including this year, noting how not only did he speak to visitors from Texas and Ohio the previous evening, but also far-flung places such as Dubai and Australia. 

“You know, the world is not that much a cigar-friendly place anymore. There aren’t a lot of places anywhere where you get 600 people together in a room smoking cigars. You’ve got to love it,” Savona said.

The first guest speaker to kick things into gear was Cigar Aficionado Hall-of-Famer Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. The elder cigar statesman was at the ready, a lit cigar already clenched in his teeth as he mounted the stage to discuss with Savona the No. 3 Cigar of 2024, the Casa Carrillo Encore Celestial (96 points).

Savona began by asking about the Encore blend, which he referred to as “a winner,” as not only was the Celestial the No. 3 of 2024, but the smaller Majestic vitola was the Cigar of the Year for 2018. Perez-Carrillo agreed, likening it to a hit record like The Beatles’ “She Loves You” or “A Hard Day’s Night.” The blend’s inception arose from a challenge from his daughter Lissette to create a No. 1 cigar following the E.P. Carrillo (now Casa Carrillo) La Historia E-III earning the No. 2 spot in 2014.

Perez-Carrillo said he didn’t start blending with a specific goal in mind. “The inspiration always comes from the tobacco,” he said. That inspiration came in 2016 while visiting the Plasencias in Honduras when he saw a shade-grown Nicaraguan wrapper leaf that they were growing in Jalapa. From there, he began working on the all-Nicaraguan blend. Encore was introduced at the 2016 RTDA (now PCA) trade show, but the cigarmaker felt the wrapper didn’t quite deliver the flavor he hoped for and so went back to the drawing board, utilizing a longer, different fermentation process. The new process required increasing the heat from 110 degrees to 118 degrees, a few extra months aging and then placing the leaves in tercios (large bales of tobacco wrapped in palm bark) for six to 12 months. This helped keep up the humidity and allowed a slower fermentation. 

Savona noted that Perez-Carrillo loves tobacco and the cigarmaker concurred, stating he maintains a massive inventory of 550,000 pounds of leaf. He explained that he is always looking for new tobaccos to use in future blends. “It’s like when I start to get bored, I’ll see this new tobacco or whatever,” he said. “It’s like new lease on life.”

Perez-Carrillo has 55 years of experience making cigars, beginning working with his father in 1970 before operating La Gloria Cubana, and then making cigars under his own name in 2009. With this in mind, Savona asked him how the industry compared then versus now. Perez-Carrillo said the industry was much smaller when he embarked on his career, with about 70 million cigars imported annually into the United States, as opposed to the 470 million today. He particularly highlighted the new seed varietals and growing techniques that have allowed new innovations. Looking ahead, Perez-Carrillo was optimistic. “Everybody’s manufacturing better cigars, the tobaccos coming out are exceptional, we have a lot of youth coming into the business… so I think that we have a very, very bright future and you guys are in for a lot of surprises in the future—not only from us but from the new generation that’s coming up.”

After the Cohiba seminar concluded, it was time to discuss the No. 2 cigar of 2024, the Montecristo 1935 Anniversary Nicaragua Espeso (97 points). Again, Savona took to the stage, this time joined by Rafael Nodal, owner of the Aging Room brand and vice president of product capability for Altadis U.S.A., the latter eschewing his signature blue blazer and glasses for a bright pink jacket and red glasses.

“Before we start, I just want to say that I don’t want to hear any complaint for an $18 or $20 cigar in the United States,” he wisecracked, referencing the high prices for Cuban Cohibas discussed in the previous seminar.

The Montecristo 1935 Anniversary Nicaragua brand was created in 2020 to celebrate Montecristo’s 85th anniversary and was a collaboration between Nodal and A.J. Fernandez. The No. 2 size—a torpedo—coincidentally also earned the No. 2 spot in 2021. Though conceived along with the original sizes, the Espeso—a box-pressed grande—was released a few years later. Nodal said he held it because he thought the world wasn’t ready for it at the time. 

Grandes are a newer size in the cigar market, seen as a novelty until recent decades where they are now considered one of the most popular vitolas in the industry. Nodal told the room that when he got his start in the late ‘90s, cigars measuring 60 ring gauge or more were among his earliest projects and he fell in love with the size. Savona asked the room if grandes were their go-to size and roughly a third of the room raised their hand.

For the Espeso, Nodal stated that the blend is not merely the same as the rest of the line with the percentages adjusted to compensate for the larger ring gauge but was actually blended from the ground up. When asked to describe the blending process with A.J. Fernandez Nodal joked, “Well, the good thing is I’m married to a psychiatrist.” He went on to elaborate saying their process involved a lot of going back and forth between the two and no small amount of fighting but being from Florida he learned how to stand his ground. 

Savona inquired how many blends it took to arrive at the final one for the 1935 Anniversary Nicaragua and Nodal estimated at 64 or 65, in comparison to the Aging Room Quattro Nicaragua—named the 2019 Cigar of the Year with the Maestro size—only taking about 26 blends. 

Nodal likened blending to being a musician, stating though there are only seven notes, you can do a lot with them when composing. “If I sit at the piano and just let my imagination go, it’s a little bit easier because sometimes good things come, bad things come out… But when you know specifically, it’s so difficult because you’re just trying to get your ideas with these tobaccos that are so different to try to get these specific flavors and that’s why I think this took so long and so many blends and so many fights.”

Following the Big Ring Gauge Cigars seminar, it was time to speak about the Cigar of the Year: The My Father The Judge Grand Robusto (98 points). Joining managing editor Gregory Mottola were Don José “Pepín” Garcia, his son Jaime, daughter Janny and My Father’s vice president of sales José Ortega, who also served as translator for Pepin and Jaime.

Before making introductions, Mottola gave a brief overview of The Judge, a brand that was launched in 2016 and has proven quite consistent over the years, particularly with the Grand Robusto size appearing in Cigar Aficionado’s Top 25 lists in 2017, 2021 and taking the No. 1 spot 2024.

The Garcia family are not just cigarmakers but also are also tobacco growers, with farms in multiple regions of Nicaragua (and more recently Honduras) that feature heavily in their blends. In Nicaragua alone, the Garcias have farms in six different regions, each growing distinct varietals planted based on the soil type. The Nicaraguan binder and filler used for The Judge comes from three of those farms: the majority from Estelí and the rest from Jalapa and Condega. But the is wrapper is Ecuador Sumatra. Though the Garcias do grow Nicaraguan wrapper, they felt the Ecuador Sumatra provided the right texture and profile they envisioned.

Jaime explained the difference in the soil in dictates the characteristics of the tobacco. Looser, sandier soil results in bigger, more elastic leaves, whereas clay-like soil yields thicker leaves with more aggressive flavor. 

“In order to maintain the consistency in our cigars, we have to know exactly where each one of the seeds were grown,” he said. “There are many factors that are prevalent when you’re making a blend. The weather is very instrumental. Every year the weather acts differently and we have to know that for year-to-year so we can compensate for it in the fermentation process.”

Mottola asked Janny, who oversees inventory, what happened when the Grand Robusto was named the No. 1 cigar. “Madness,” she said succinctly. She elaborated stating the belief that cigarmakers are given advance notice of the Top 25 reveals is not the case. When the Cigar of the Year announcement is made, the factory is not already stockpiled with inventory. Though they do try to meet the exponential increase in demand, maintaining quality is more important. “Making cigars is not easy, you cannot just make a cigar today and put in a box tomorrow,” Janny explained. “We don’t make cigars just for one day.”

Jaime further explained just how unprepared they were when the No. 1 announcement was made as the factory was already on vacation. The chief of production and 30 pairs of workers had to be called back.

Mottola told the audience that Pepin had told him it was his dream to make cigars on his own and on his own terms with his family involved, including his grandchildren. Did he feel his dream came true? The cigarmaker became visibly emotional but his voice remained strong. “This is the biggest blessing you can have,” he said. He also thanked both the audience and Cigar Aficionado “for putting my name up in the sky with God.”

The Big Smoke will return to Las Vegas next fall, November 6 and 7, 2026. Save the date.

Big Smoke Las Vegas 2025
Big Smoke Las Vegas Evenings
Seminars: Brunch With Oliva Cigar Co.
Seminars: The Allure Of Cohiba
Seminars: The Over-Sized Cigar Trend
Seminars: Michael Cudlitz Interview
Seminars: Bacardi And Santa Teresa Rum Tasting