These Are the Best Cigars of 2018, According To Cigar Aficionado
These incredible stogies smoked the competition.
The best cigars of the year have arrived. Cigar Aficionado revealed the top 10 stogies on their annual list of the Top 25 Cigars of 2018. After scrutinizing and rating nearly 750 examples, an expert panel put each through multiple blind taste tests to determine which deserved the lofty title of Cigar of the Year.
With tasting notes from Cigar Aficionado, here are the top 10 stogies of 2018, ranked.
10. Montecristo Nicaragua Series Robusto
Nicaragua – $11.75
The balance of this cigar is undeniable, medium to full in body, resonating with the fine qualities of chocolate-covered espresso beans, rich woods and dried fruit.
9. Alec Bradley Black Market Estelí Torpedo
Nicaragua – $8.75
It’s earthy and leathery with sweet, concentrated undertones of raisins and cocoa. The draw is flawless, delivering a weighty, substantial smoke to the palate, which speaks to the cigar’s excellent construction and fine tobacco.
8. Olivia Serie V Melanio Churchill
Nicaragua – $14.00
The Serie V Melanio Churchill is as aromatic as it is flavorful, with notes of malted chocolate and mesquite that occur in both the nose and on the palate.
7. JFR Lunatic Habano Short Robusto
Nicaragua – $5.98
The cigar is profoundly nutty (no pun intended) with precise notes of cashew and walnut wonderfully layered atop a core of coffee bean.
6. Arturo Fuente Hemingway Work of Art
Dominican Republic – $9.65
Once the burn gets going past the bulbous taper, it really loads the palate with nutty, toasty smoke before blossoming with baking spices, citrus notes and the sweet-and-spicy properties that Cameroon wrapper is known for.
5. H. Upmann Sir Winston
Cuba – $45.71
The cigar is brimming with refined chocolate, marzipan, floral notes and a sweet, graham cracker finish, all brought together by that unique, inimitable Cuban taste.
4. Padrón Family Reserve No. 44 (Natural)
Nicaragua – $32.10
Padrón cigars tend to have a few signature gustatory qualities, like chocolate, coffee and nuts. The Family Reserve No. 44 is no different. Its tapered torpedo head concentrates and magnifies these flavor elements, all of which are dynamic and refined, but also rich without being too heavy or overpowering.
3. The Wise Man Maduro Robusto
Nicaragua – $10.50
It’s a flavorful blend that oscillates between the sweet and the savory. Cocoa and vanilla notes, for example, play off the tobacco’s meaty, beef-stock qualities, all integrated by an ever-present earthiness.
2. My Father La Opulencia Toro
Nicaragua – $11.80
The combustion is perfect, the draw offering earthy underpinnings of chocolate and cocoa with each puff, balanced by a mid-palate oakiness and sweeter, subtle top notes of anise and nougat.
1. E.P. Carrillo Encore Majestic
Dominican Republic – $11.50
The filler tobaccos deep inside are from Nicaragua’s three primary growing regions—Estelí, Condega and Jalapa—and all of it comes together in the Majestic, a robusto of immaculately detailed flavor that ranges from oak and tea to caramel sweetness with tangy citrus pops of candied orange peel.
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