Federal Cigar 93rd Anniversary

Federal Cigar’s annual anniversary cigar has become one of the most anticipated releases across the cigar industry.  This year for the shop’s 93rd Anniversary release, the cigar will be a blend that comes from Oliva Cigar Company – the Federal Cigar 93rd Anniversary Reserve No. 2.  The cigars will be launched at the company’s 93rd Anniversary celebration the weekend of March 14th and 15th.

The story around this cigar is about 18 months ago ago at Tabacalera Oliva Tabolisa, the factory was doing some re-arranging in their aging rooms and came across a bunch of mismatched Master Blend 1s and Master Blends 2s. At the same time, they came across a few thousand torpedoes that were rolled sometime in the 2003/early 2004 timeframe, but had been sitting in the aging room stored in paper wrapped quarter wheels.  Some of the cigars were sent to Federal Cigar owner Rick Gadway, who felt it was an amazing smoke.  The decision was made to make this the 93rd Anniversary Cigar.

In terms of the packaging, the banding uses the Federal Cigar logo.  The cigars are packaged in plain cellophane bundles of 10 and a total of 200 bundles were produced.  A decision was made not to wait for special bands and boxes to be designed and produced since the cigars were smoking at their peak.

At a glance, here is a look at the Federal Cigar 93rd Anniversary:

Blend Profile

According to Gadway, these cigars that were uncovered in Tabolisa’s aging room were for a follow-up to Oliva Master Blends 1, but did not become the Oliva Master Blends 2 release.  It is unclear why these cigars never materialized for a release.  Gadway says this cigar smokes very different from any of the Master Blends releases.

While the cigars were rolled in the 2003/2004 timeframe, the tobaccos are even older – possibly 2001 or earlier.

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sun Grown
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan

Vitolas Available

The cigar has a similar shape to the other Master Blends.  It is a semi-pressed torpedo at 6 x 52.