EPC Cigar Celebrating 10 Years With New Smoke
We are in year 10 of Ernesto Perez-Carrillo’s third act in the cigar business, and the veteran cigarmaker is rolling out a pair of limited-edition, celebratory smokes to mark the occasion in style. He is making two new sizes of his two highest-rated blends, La Historia and Encore (rated No. 2 and No. 1 by Cigar Aficionado in different years of the magazine’s Top 25 ranking) and they will be packaged together in a commemorative box.
Both cigars will come in one size: a box-pressed, double figurado measuring 6 1/2 inches long by 56 ring gauge. These are new shapes for each blend, and therefore ones that have never been rated by Cigar Aficionado. Each will retail for $20 per cigar, and they will be packed in boxes of 20, half of them Encores, half of them La Historias.
The new smokes will make their industry debut starting Saturday morning at the annual trade show, and are scheduled to ship to cigar retailers in October.
Both blends prominently feature Nicaraguan tobaccos. The Encore 10th Anniversary is an all-Nicaraguan blend. The La Historia 10th Anniversary cigar is made with Nicaraguan filler, an Ecuadoran binder and Mexican wrappers.
Perez-Carrillo got his start in the cigar business more than 40 years ago, making cigars in Miami alongside his father, among them the La Gloria Cubana brand. He later worked for General Cigar Co. and in 2009 he set out with his children to create EPC Cigar Co. The company makes cigars in the Dominican Republic.
Perez-Carrillo is scheduled to speak about his E.P. Carrillo Encore Majestic—Cigar Aficionado’s No. 1 Cigar of 2018—at the Las Vegas Big Smoke in November. Seminar attendees will get to smoke the cigar, which rated 96 points in a Cigar Aficionado blind tasting, as he speaks from the podium.
