Rocky Patel Conviction: New $100 Cigar Coming This Fall
As the cigar market sees one $100 (or more) release after another, Rocky Patel has entered that segment of the category with Rocky Patel Conviction. The one-size-line not only has extraordinary packaging, but Patel says it is being made with the oldest tobaccos in his inventory, and he thinks it’s the best cigar he’s ever made.
“People were looking for something higher end,” he says. “There’s a strong demand for expensive cigars.”
Patel is not only a cigarmaker, but he grows some of his own tobacco, something he has been doing for nearly ten years. Conviction is made with his oldest leaves. “We started growing tobacco in 2014,” he says. “We used our old, old filler...It’s got our oldest filler from both the farms in it.”
That filler was grown in Nicaragua (in two areas, Condega and Estelí), the binder is Nicaraguan Jalapa and the wrapper is a high-priming leaf from Mexico’s San Andrés Valley. Conviction comes in one size, a box-pressed Toro measuring 6 1/2 inches by 52 ring gauge. There are 10 cigars per box, each of them tubed, and the cigars are priced at $100 apiece, or $1,000 for the box.
Only four cigarmakers “the best of the best,” he says, craft the cigars. The two bunchers and two rollers make Conviction at Patel’s Tavicusa factory in Nicaragua.
“We wanted to make something that screams luxury,” he says. The cigars are packed in heavy, square metal tubes the color of rose gold, and the box has a piano finish.
Shipping should take place around November, perhaps as early as October. “We’re going to give it time to age.”
The initial batch is 5,000 boxes, but there should be more. “I’m not saying it’s a one-and-done,” he says.
