Cigar Aficionado

When Cigar Aficionado named the E.P. Carrillo Encore Majestic the Cigar of the Year for 2018, it marked the third consecutive time that the No. 1 cigar came from the Dominican Republic. The E.P. Carrillo is made in Santiago, the capital of Dominican cigarmaking, rolled under the watchful eye of Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, who has been making cigars in that city since the late 1990s.

The 2017 and 2016 winners also come from the Dominican Republic. The 2017 Cigar of the Year, the Arturo Fuente Don Carlos Eye of the Shark, is rolled in Santiago, and the 2016 winner, the La Flor Dominicana Andaulsian Bull, is rolled in Tamboril, on the outskirts of that city, the second largest in the Dominican Republic. 
 
In total, the Dominican Republic has had four Cigars of the Year. The Fuente Fuente OpusX Double Corona was crowned top cigar of 2005. 

But the country with the record for most No. 1 cigars is Nicaragua. Seven of the 15 cigars named No. 1 by Cigar Aficionado, or 46.7 percent, were rolled in Nicaragua. Three of them were made by Padrón Cigars, which holds the record for most No. 1 cigars by any company.

Cuba is close behind the Dominican Republic, with three No. 1 smokes, the latest the Montecristo No. 2, named Cigar of the Year for 2013. Honduras has one, the Alec Bradley Prensado Churchill, named No. 1 cigar for 2011.

No other country has had a cigar of the year.
 

Cigar Aficionado's Cigars Of The Year—Where They're Made

Source: Cigar Aficionado