Cigar Aficionado

The second release of Alec Bradley Fine & Rare is on its way to cigar shops. The limited-edition torpedoes, made with a complex blend of ten tobaccos, left Alec Bradley's headquarters in Dania, Florida, yesterday and will begin arriving in stores today.

The Alec Bradley Fine & Rare 2012 is a torpedo measuring 6 inches long by 52 ring gauge, made in Honduras at the Raices Cubanas Factory (which also makes the Alec Bradley Prensado, Cigar Aficionado's reigning Cigar of the Year.)

While the new Fine & Rare has the same name as the original, and the same Honduran wrapper, grown in a region known as Trojes, the rest of the blend has been tweaked.

"We thought that with the 10 tobaccos, we could continue to play with it," said brand owner Alan Rubin in the August 14 Cigar Insider.

Alec Bradley intends to make Fine & Rare an annual, vintage-dated release, and like vintage wines, expects each iteration of Fine & Rare to have certain differences. This year's Fine & Rare blend is called BR1213, and the 2011 version was known as HJ10-i.

Fine & Rare debuted in 2011 as a one-size cigar line limited to 1,110 boxes. The smoke, a parejo measuring 6 inches long by 52 ring gauge, scored 90 points in a blind tasting in the March 6 Cigar Insider.

Fine & Rare 2012 comes out with a slightly higher price ($16.50, as opposed to $14.00) and a higher production run. There will be 2,000 boxes, each containing 10 cigars, for a total run of 20,000 cigars.

They come in elaborate boxes of 10, the cigars presented in wooden holders to keep them protected. Each cigar bears a massive cigar band with a serial number, plus the signatures of Alec Bradley executives Rubin and Ralph Montero, factory supervisor Alex Miguel Artica, and the two workers in Honduras who crafted the cigars: buncher Wilmar Jose Valerio and roller Juan Carlos Artica.

Alec Bradley says the 2011 run sold out immediately. 

Note: The original version of this story had the original blend listed as HJ101. The first blend is actually known as HJ10-i.