Rocky's New Birthday Cigar

David Savona
Posted: January 21, 2013

Rocky Patel has a number of cigars pegged to celebrations of birth. The Rocky Patel 1961 honors the year he was born and the Rocky Patel Fifty (Cigar Aficionado’s No. 8 cigar of 2012) was made to commemorate his turning 50 years old. Next month, a new addition will join his celebratory ranks, and for the first time it will include tobacco that his company grew on its own.

The Rocky Patel IIXXVI (that’s 2/26, his birthday, written in Roman numerals) is set to be launched around February 26. the three-size cigar line is a blend of Nicaraguan tobaccos grown by Patel’s company, a Mexican double binder leaf and a dark broadleaf wrapper grown in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

“Eighty percent of the filler is from our farms in Estelí,” said Patel last week on a visit to the Cigar Aficionado offices in New York City. Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, which has grown steadily from a small, upstart company into one of the biggest producers of premium cigars for the U.S. market, now has two farms in Estelí, Nicaragua, where it also rolls many of its cigars. This smoke is the first to use a considerable amount of his farm tobacco in a blend. The Rocky Patel Private Cellar, not named for one of his birthdays, uses a small amount of his farm tobacco.

For more information on this new release, see the next issue of Cigar Insider.

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