An unranked editorial retrospective of lines available by 2023, informed by manufacturer accounts. These selections are not historical award results or firsthand tasting notes from cigars produced that year.
Perdomo marks thirty years, La Aurora celebrates one hundred twenty, and Plasencia moves to another harvest designation with Cosecha 151. Those milestones give 2023 its opening, while La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut brings a gentler expression into the year. Our selection of the best cigars of 2023 follows the time recorded in these names and the blend decisions beneath them, with recent collaborations and carefully identified growing sources adding further depth.
Perdomo 30th Anniversary Maduro
The Maduro expression of Perdomo’s thirtieth anniversary emphasizes long-aged Nicaraguan tobacco and barrel treatment of the wrapper. Preparation gives the company milestone its working substance. The chosen version directs the tribute through a particular leaf, with Maduro taking a separate place alongside the anniversary family’s other wrapper expressions.
Plasencia Cosecha 151
Cosecha 151 continues Plasencia’s numbered harvest story through an all-Honduran tobacco composition. The designation belongs to the family’s agricultural sequence, giving the cigar a connection to the crop behind it. Beside Cosecha 149, the newer expression extends that record through another separately identified release.
La Aurora 120 Aniversario
La Aurora introduced 120 Aniversario in 2023 to celebrate one hundred twenty years of cigar making. The regular line’s Dominican tobacco expression makes the home country part of the commemoration. Twenty years after the original 100 Años, another cigar carries the company’s growing history into the present.
La Aroma de Cuba Connecticut
An Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper gives La Aroma de Cuba a gentler expression in the Garcia-made range. The line adds another direction beside Mi Amor and Pasión, with a specific wrapper choice at its center. Its arrival brings a quieter option into a year rich with darker cigars and elaborate anniversaries.
E.P. Carrillo Allegiance
Allegiance carries Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler through Oliva’s Nicaraguan manufacturing. The E.P. Carrillo collaboration makes its production relationship unusually revealing beside Pledge. One brand family reaches across different factories, with separate blends giving each partnership a clear role.
Foundation Olmec Maduro
Olmec Maduro surrounds Nicaraguan tobaccos with Mexican San Andrés wrapper. Foundation connects the specific outer leaf to the line’s cultural name, grounding an evocative presentation in a clear composition. The Maduro expression brings another source of wrapper to the year’s company of aged Nicaraguan and Dominican anniversary cigars.
Blackened M81 by Drew Estate
Blackened M81 carries the Hetfield–Dietrich–Drew collaboration into the year after its 2022 debut. The original maduro-focused expression gives the project a defined starting point. Its combination of creative backgrounds adds a different human story beside the multigenerational company histories being celebrated elsewhere in the selection.
AJ Fernandez New World Dorado
New World Dorado directs attention to AJ Fernandez’s Dorado farm in Nicaragua. The growing location gives the expression its particular place within the broader New World family. Beside Cosecha 151, it adds another kind of agricultural detail: where tobacco grows alongside a record of the harvest to which it belongs.
La Aroma de Cuba Pasión
Pasión places shade-grown Nicaraguan wrapper from Namanji within the La Aroma de Cuba range. Beside the brand’s Ecuadorian Connecticut expression, it makes the role of cultivation especially clear. Shade can be part of different tobacco stories, with origin and leaf selection still essential to understanding the actual wrapper.
E.P. Carrillo Pledge
Pledge combines American wrapper, Ecuadorian binder and Nicaraguan filler through Carrillo’s Dominican production. It gives the Oliva-made Allegiance a close companion with a different recipe and factory setting. The comparison reveals the range of work beneath a shared brand name, expressed through specific material and manufacturing choices.
Looking back at 2023
The anniversaries in 2023 measure the life of a company; the harvest designation records a different passage of time. Each needs the cigar beside it to complete the story. The year’s selections connect those milestones to wrapper, preparation and manufacture, giving the numbers a useful place within the work.
Brand background, where linked, lives on Ashologist™ — The Study of Cigars.