Sunday, January 21 2007
In its January/February 2007 issue, Cigar Aficionado named a Jose Seijas Signature Series 2000, a
Saint Luis Rey Reserva Belicoso and a
Quintero Churchill to its list of the 25 best cigars of 2006. All of the cigars are products of Altadis U.S.A. Moreover, they are the only non-Cuban manufacturer to have as many as three selections on the coveted list.
The Seijas Signature Series 2000 is the most rare of the cigars created by renowned master cigar maker Jose Seijas. It is hand-made in extremely limited quantities. (Altadis U.S.A. reports it is in the process of expanding distribution from 25 to about 100 accounts encompassing about 150 retailers. See www.altadisusa.com for a list of retailers.) The cigar features an Ecuadorian wrapper, Dominican binder, and filler tobaccos from the Dominican Republic, Peru and Nicaragua. Fuller-bodied and "blended for the hearty smoker" according to the publication, the Seijas Signature was rated 91, placing it in the "outstanding" category. Last year, Cigar Aficionado's newsletter, Cigar Insider, named a Seijas Signature the best cigar to come out of the Dominican Republic and gave it a 92 rating.
"It's hard to find a better value in the world of premium cigars than the Saint Luis Rey Reserva Belicoso," says Cigar Aficionado. With its Nicaraguan wrapper and binder and filler tobaccos from Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru, the Saint Luis Rey is a medium to full-bodied smoke rated at an "outstanding" 90 by the tasters. It is one of three cigars from Altadis U.S.A.'s Flor de Copan factory in Honduras - they make "several wonderful cigars" says Cigar Aficionado - to make the top 25 list. (The other two are the Quintero, below, and La Aroma de Cuba which is manufactured for Ashton.)
Describing it as "yet another quality, inexpensive cigar from the Flor de Copan factory," the latest issue of Cigar Aficionado, in its top 25 cigars listing, gave a Quintero Churchill a rating of 90. Constructed with a Cuban seed Honduran wrapper surrounding a Honduran binder and Nicaraguan and Honduran filler tobaccos, Quintero is a "hearty" smoke that "connoisseurs of fuller-bodied cigars are loving," says the manufacturer. In an earlier vertical brand tasting, Cigar Insider described Quintero as "very impressive," and rated it as high as 92. £
