
After a year of puffing on some 700 new cigars from all around the world, the smoke has finally settled in the Cigar Aficionado offices and they have unveiled the Top 25 cigars of the year. Below are the Top 10 cigars of 2010 from CigarAficionado.com.

No. 10 Litto Gomez is a creative cigarmaker, and perhaps his greatest innovation is coming up with the Chisel shape in 2003. The flattened figurado has a head that looks like a handtool or the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument. Its latest incarnation—fall of 2010—is our No. 10 cigar of 2010, the La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Chisel. It lives up to the reputation for power and full flavor that previous Chisels share. Made from a blend of Gomez’s homegrown Dominican filler and binder tobaccos, including some piloto Cubano, Sumatra seed and Corojo, the smoke is finished with Habano-seed wrapper leaf grown in Ecuador. Gomez used a leaf of ligero from a higher priming for the wrapper on this cigar, giving it a darker hue and more strength than his other La Flor Dominicana Air Benders.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 54 LENGTH: 6 1/2" FILLER: DOM. REP. BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: ECUADOR
La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Chisel Bold from the very first puff, the cigar is strong and meaty, full of spice and coffee notes, with a finish reminiscent of a whiskey barrel. Gomez’s cigars are renowned for power and spice. PRICE: $8.50	94

No. 9 If Cuba’s best-known torpedo is the Montecristo No. 2, perhaps the country’s best-kept secret is the H. Upmann No. 2. An insider’s cigar, the H. Upmann No. 2 is a carbon copy of the ubiquitous Monte, sharing the same stately appearance, with its proud, pointed head and substantial 52 ring gauge. Cuba makes fewer H. Upmanns than Montecristos, so the Upmann is a harder find, but well worth the search, with a solid core of earthy flavor, nuts and coffee beans.
	CUBA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6 1/8" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA
H. Upmann No. 2 These are hearty smokes, and for the past three years they have performed consistently well in our blind tastings. The H. Upmann brand is one of the oldest in the cigar world, dating back to 1844. PRICE: $16.90	94

No. 8 Ernesto Perez-Carrillo has been making cigars for a long time. He learned his craft from his father, working in Little Havana at their tiny factory called El Credito Cigars, the birthplace of the non-Cuban La Gloria Cubana. That smoke became one of the first true hits of the cigar boom, and grew into something far larger. Later Perez-Carrillo sold his business to Swedish Match AB, and in March 2009 he resigned from the company to forge a new cigar business with his son and daughter: EPC Cigar Co. He has come out with four cigars since 2009: the E.P. Carrillo Short Run, his so-called “core” line, and two limited editions, one each year.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 54 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: BRAZIL
E.P. Carrillo Elencos Edición Limitada 2010 A sweet and savory smoke that combines flavors of caramel and leather. The only flaw with this cigar is its rarity—the company is only making 1,000 boxes, each containing 10 cigars. PRICE: $15.00	94

No. 7 Dion Giolito is a new breed of cigarmaker, a passionate cigar retailer from Reno, Nevada, who decided to make his own cigar brand. Giolito is proud to call himself picky, claiming to test-smoke each batch of tobacco before it’s made into his cigars, and rejecting any that don’t meet his expectations. In August 2007, CA conducted a brand tasting of the original nine sizes in Cigar Insider—all but one scored 90 points or more, and the cg:4 was named their No. 7 cigar of 2007.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 46 LENGTH: 6 1/2" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Illusione Epernay Le Matin The Epernay cigars are meant to be lighter and sweeter than the original Illusiones. (It has no ligero) The Le Matin is the newest size in this line, released in 2010, is balanced, creamy and medium bodied. PRICE: $11.20	94

No. 6 The Mi Amor Magnifico is a stellar medium-bodied smoke, toothy, dark and box pressed, with intense flavors of rich coffee paired with a touch of vanilla. This is the newest version of La Aroma de Cuba, a brand that originated in Cuba and was reinvented by Ashton. The new version of the brand debuted in 2002 as a Honduran smoke. Ashton later enlisted Jose “Pepin” Garcia to make a new version of La Aroma, which it dubbed Edición Especial.
	NICARAGUA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Magnifico Today, Garcia makes every La Aroma de Cuba in Estelí, Nicaragua. Mexican wrappers have been part of the cigar industry for decades, but Cuban-seed Mexican wrappers are relatively new. PRICE: $7.50	94

No. 5 Corojo seed makes superb tobacco, but it’s a fickle leaf. Because it is vulnerable to disease and yields fewer leaves per acre than newer hybrids, growing Corojo is far from easy. But in 2007 the crop in the Jamastran Valley of Honduras was superb, and today that Corojo leaf wrapper is being used to roll Camacho Corojo cigars. Camacho is a Miami company (now a subsidiary of Davidoff of Geneva) that earned some of its highest ratings ever from Cigar Aficionado this year, and this No. 5 ranking of the Camacho Corojo Churchill represents Camacho’s highest finish ever in our Top 25.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 48 LENGTH: 7" FILLER: HONDURAS BINDER: HONDURAS WRAPPER: HONDURAS
Camacho Corojo Churchill There’s a lot to like about this cigar—it’s a hefty smoke, medium to full bodied, and loaded with rich, leathery flavors and notes of earth and dark fruit. At less than $7, it’s also a bargain, one of the best buys on our list. PRICE: $6.85	94

No. 4 The Padrón Family Reserve No. 45 Maduro was the 2009 Cigar of the Year—this is the natural version of that very same cigar. It has the same dimensions and suggested retail price, but the lighter wrapper gives the cigar a different flavor. While the considerable kick of the maduro is informed by hearty, resonant coffee, cocoa and spice flavors that saturate the palate, the natural is a bit more mellow, with flavors of cocoa bean and earth on the palate. The cigar is quite balanced and exceptionally flavorful.
	NICARAGUA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Padrón Family Reserve No. 45 (Natural) It’s impossible to exaggerate how well the Padrón family has done in CA’s Top 25—three times the company has had a Cigar of the Year, and the Padróns have never failed to have a cigar in the top five. PRICE: $25.00	95

No. 3 No cigar has more names and nicknames than this short Fuente Fuente OpusX. However you ask for it, it’s a dynamite smoke, a complex powerhouse with full-bodied flavors of leather and earth. The finish has that essential sweetness found in the best of strong cigars, along with an intriguing note of Scotch whiskey on the finish. It’s quite the cigar. While it’s among the shortest of the Fuente Fuente OpusX line, it’s also one of the most powerful. The Fuente Fuente OpusX brand is among the most successful in history.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 49 LENGTH: 4 5/8" FILLER: DOM. REP. BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: DOM. REP.
Fuente Fuente OpusX XXX Belicoso The hallmark of this brand, first released in November 1995, is the dark, oily and reddish-brown wrapper leaf grown under the shade at Chateau de la Fuente, a wrapper farm in El Caribe, Dominican Republic. PRICE: $10.20	95

No. 2 There’s a good chance this is the first time you’re reading about the Viaje cigar brand. It’s a new and fairly unheralded brand, first made under contract at the Joya de Nicaragua factory but later moved to Honduras and the Raices Cubanas cigar factory, which is building a reputation as a maker of delicious, well-crafted cigars. Starting with the December issue of CA, it scored 91 points, enough for it to merit consideration in the Top 25 contest. Then it delivered top performance after top performance to move up their rankings in subsequent Top 25 taste tests. The Viaje Oro Reserva VOR No. 5 is a limited-production smoke made for the brand owner Andre Farkas.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 5 1/2" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Viaje Oro Reserva VOR No. 5 The flavorful cigar has notes of leather, sweet spices and a cocoa-powder finish that walks a perfectly fine line between bitter and sweet. Few things in life are as pleasant as finding an unexpected gem, and the VOR No. 5 truly fits the bill. PRICE: $10.80	95

No. 1 The Behike BHK 52 is a petit robusto, a size known as a Laguito No. 4 in Cuban cigar factories, and it wowed CA’s tasting panel from the get-go. In a vertical brand tasting in the June 8 Cigar Insider the BHK 52 scored 94 points, the best of a trio that includes the BHK 54 and the very fat BHK 56. The 52 has remained delicious ever since, performing admirably in taste test after taste test as Behikes have sold out in world markets.
	CUBA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 4 3/4" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA
Cohiba Behike BHK 52 The cigars show great balance even in youth, with a medium to full body, creamy coffee flavors and some earthiness. They show elements of Cuban cigars of old, and should get even better with age—if you can be patient. PRICE: $28.70	97

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Cigar Aficionado Top 10 Cigars of the Year 2010

by Johnny Mixx on February 6, 2011


After a year of puffing on some 700 new cigars from all around the world, the smoke has finally settled in the Cigar Aficionado offices and they have unveiled the Top 25 cigars of the year. Below are the Top 10 cigars of 2010 from CigarAficionado.com.

No. 10 Litto Gomez is a creative cigarmaker, and perhaps his greatest innovation is coming up with the Chisel shape in 2003. The flattened figurado has a head that looks like a handtool or the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument. Its latest incarnation—fall of 2010—is our No. 10 cigar of 2010, the La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Chisel. It lives up to the reputation for power and full flavor that previous Chisels share. Made from a blend of Gomez’s homegrown Dominican filler and binder tobaccos, including some piloto Cubano, Sumatra seed and Corojo, the smoke is finished with Habano-seed wrapper leaf grown in Ecuador. Gomez used a leaf of ligero from a higher priming for the wrapper on this cigar, giving it a darker hue and more strength than his other La Flor Dominicana Air Benders.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 54 LENGTH: 6 1/2" FILLER: DOM. REP. BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: ECUADOR
La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Chisel Bold from the very first puff, the cigar is strong and meaty, full of spice and coffee notes, with a finish reminiscent of a whiskey barrel. Gomez’s cigars are renowned for power and spice. PRICE: $8.50	94

No. 9 If Cuba’s best-known torpedo is the Montecristo No. 2, perhaps the country’s best-kept secret is the H. Upmann No. 2. An insider’s cigar, the H. Upmann No. 2 is a carbon copy of the ubiquitous Monte, sharing the same stately appearance, with its proud, pointed head and substantial 52 ring gauge. Cuba makes fewer H. Upmanns than Montecristos, so the Upmann is a harder find, but well worth the search, with a solid core of earthy flavor, nuts and coffee beans.
	CUBA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6 1/8" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA
H. Upmann No. 2 These are hearty smokes, and for the past three years they have performed consistently well in our blind tastings. The H. Upmann brand is one of the oldest in the cigar world, dating back to 1844. PRICE: $16.90	94

No. 8 Ernesto Perez-Carrillo has been making cigars for a long time. He learned his craft from his father, working in Little Havana at their tiny factory called El Credito Cigars, the birthplace of the non-Cuban La Gloria Cubana. That smoke became one of the first true hits of the cigar boom, and grew into something far larger. Later Perez-Carrillo sold his business to Swedish Match AB, and in March 2009 he resigned from the company to forge a new cigar business with his son and daughter: EPC Cigar Co. He has come out with four cigars since 2009: the E.P. Carrillo Short Run, his so-called “core” line, and two limited editions, one each year.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 54 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: BRAZIL
E.P. Carrillo Elencos Edición Limitada 2010 A sweet and savory smoke that combines flavors of caramel and leather. The only flaw with this cigar is its rarity—the company is only making 1,000 boxes, each containing 10 cigars. PRICE: $15.00	94

No. 7 Dion Giolito is a new breed of cigarmaker, a passionate cigar retailer from Reno, Nevada, who decided to make his own cigar brand. Giolito is proud to call himself picky, claiming to test-smoke each batch of tobacco before it’s made into his cigars, and rejecting any that don’t meet his expectations. In August 2007, CA conducted a brand tasting of the original nine sizes in Cigar Insider—all but one scored 90 points or more, and the cg:4 was named their No. 7 cigar of 2007.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 46 LENGTH: 6 1/2" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Illusione Epernay Le Matin The Epernay cigars are meant to be lighter and sweeter than the original Illusiones. (It has no ligero) The Le Matin is the newest size in this line, released in 2010, is balanced, creamy and medium bodied. PRICE: $11.20	94

No. 6 The Mi Amor Magnifico is a stellar medium-bodied smoke, toothy, dark and box pressed, with intense flavors of rich coffee paired with a touch of vanilla. This is the newest version of La Aroma de Cuba, a brand that originated in Cuba and was reinvented by Ashton. The new version of the brand debuted in 2002 as a Honduran smoke. Ashton later enlisted Jose “Pepin” Garcia to make a new version of La Aroma, which it dubbed Edición Especial.
	NICARAGUA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Magnifico Today, Garcia makes every La Aroma de Cuba in Estelí, Nicaragua. Mexican wrappers have been part of the cigar industry for decades, but Cuban-seed Mexican wrappers are relatively new. PRICE: $7.50	94

No. 5 Corojo seed makes superb tobacco, but it’s a fickle leaf. Because it is vulnerable to disease and yields fewer leaves per acre than newer hybrids, growing Corojo is far from easy. But in 2007 the crop in the Jamastran Valley of Honduras was superb, and today that Corojo leaf wrapper is being used to roll Camacho Corojo cigars. Camacho is a Miami company (now a subsidiary of Davidoff of Geneva) that earned some of its highest ratings ever from Cigar Aficionado this year, and this No. 5 ranking of the Camacho Corojo Churchill represents Camacho’s highest finish ever in our Top 25.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 48 LENGTH: 7" FILLER: HONDURAS BINDER: HONDURAS WRAPPER: HONDURAS
Camacho Corojo Churchill There’s a lot to like about this cigar—it’s a hefty smoke, medium to full bodied, and loaded with rich, leathery flavors and notes of earth and dark fruit. At less than $7, it’s also a bargain, one of the best buys on our list. PRICE: $6.85	94

No. 4 The Padrón Family Reserve No. 45 Maduro was the 2009 Cigar of the Year—this is the natural version of that very same cigar. It has the same dimensions and suggested retail price, but the lighter wrapper gives the cigar a different flavor. While the considerable kick of the maduro is informed by hearty, resonant coffee, cocoa and spice flavors that saturate the palate, the natural is a bit more mellow, with flavors of cocoa bean and earth on the palate. The cigar is quite balanced and exceptionally flavorful.
	NICARAGUA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 6" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Padrón Family Reserve No. 45 (Natural) It’s impossible to exaggerate how well the Padrón family has done in CA’s Top 25—three times the company has had a Cigar of the Year, and the Padróns have never failed to have a cigar in the top five. PRICE: $25.00	95

No. 3 No cigar has more names and nicknames than this short Fuente Fuente OpusX. However you ask for it, it’s a dynamite smoke, a complex powerhouse with full-bodied flavors of leather and earth. The finish has that essential sweetness found in the best of strong cigars, along with an intriguing note of Scotch whiskey on the finish. It’s quite the cigar. While it’s among the shortest of the Fuente Fuente OpusX line, it’s also one of the most powerful. The Fuente Fuente OpusX brand is among the most successful in history.
	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RING GAUGE: 49 LENGTH: 4 5/8" FILLER: DOM. REP. BINDER: DOM. REP. WRAPPER: DOM. REP.
Fuente Fuente OpusX XXX Belicoso The hallmark of this brand, first released in November 1995, is the dark, oily and reddish-brown wrapper leaf grown under the shade at Chateau de la Fuente, a wrapper farm in El Caribe, Dominican Republic. PRICE: $10.20	95

No. 2 There’s a good chance this is the first time you’re reading about the Viaje cigar brand. It’s a new and fairly unheralded brand, first made under contract at the Joya de Nicaragua factory but later moved to Honduras and the Raices Cubanas cigar factory, which is building a reputation as a maker of delicious, well-crafted cigars. Starting with the December issue of CA, it scored 91 points, enough for it to merit consideration in the Top 25 contest. Then it delivered top performance after top performance to move up their rankings in subsequent Top 25 taste tests. The Viaje Oro Reserva VOR No. 5 is a limited-production smoke made for the brand owner Andre Farkas.
	HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 5 1/2" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA
Viaje Oro Reserva VOR No. 5 The flavorful cigar has notes of leather, sweet spices and a cocoa-powder finish that walks a perfectly fine line between bitter and sweet. Few things in life are as pleasant as finding an unexpected gem, and the VOR No. 5 truly fits the bill. PRICE: $10.80	95

No. 1 The Behike BHK 52 is a petit robusto, a size known as a Laguito No. 4 in Cuban cigar factories, and it wowed CA’s tasting panel from the get-go. In a vertical brand tasting in the June 8 Cigar Insider the BHK 52 scored 94 points, the best of a trio that includes the BHK 54 and the very fat BHK 56. The 52 has remained delicious ever since, performing admirably in taste test after taste test as Behikes have sold out in world markets.
	CUBA RING GAUGE: 52 LENGTH: 4 3/4" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA
Cohiba Behike BHK 52 The cigars show great balance even in youth, with a medium to full body, creamy coffee flavors and some earthiness. They show elements of Cuban cigars of old, and should get even better with age—if you can be patient. PRICE: $28.70	97

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Cigar Aficionado Top 10 Cigars of the Year 2010

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