Boutique Blends Announces New T59 Blend (Update)

Boutique Blends has announced their next blend, a cigar chosen by consumers via the company’s recent Wild Pack promotion.

The forthcoming Aging Room T59 will be released in five sizes, with production set to begin in January:

• Aging Room T59 Stretto–4 1/2 x 46
• Aging Room T59 Espressivo–5 x 50
• Aging Room T59 Maestro–6 x 52
• Aging Room T59 Vibrato–6 x 54
• Aging Room T59 Concerto–7 x 50

If the five sizes look familiar, it’s no coincidence, as they have been used in the Aging Room F55 line. Boutique Blends’ owner, Rafael Nodal, told Cigar Insider that the blend for the T59 is very similar to that of the F55, but uses an eight-year-old Dominican Criollo wrapper in place of the F55’s Sumatra wrapper.

The Aging Room T59 will be limited in production, due to the limited availability of the aged wrapper, with production capped at about 400,000 cigars. The tobacco for the project comes from Jose “Jochy” Blanco in the Dominican Republic, with production being handled by Tabacalera Palma, also in the Dominican Republic, where the rest of Boutique Blends’ portfolio is produced.

Prices are reported to be between $8.50 and $9.90 per cigar. Like the rest of the Aging Room line, its name comes from the day it was created: February 28, 2013, which was a Thursday and the 59th day of the year.

The Aging Room Wild Pack was first mentioned in May of 2013, with the industry getting an up-close look at it during the IPCPR Convention and Trade Show in July. The sampler contained a total of ten cigars, five pairs of unreleased blends in a 6 x 50 Toro vitola that consumers were asked to evaluate and provide feedback on via a website. Each of the cigars came with a scorecard band that provided guidance for the evaluation process. For those who participated, the winning blend was No. 4 in the sampler.

This is not the first time that consumers have picked a cigar company’s new blend, as General Cigar Company’s CAO brand held a “Last Stick Standing” promotion in the middle of 2012 that resulted in a pair of cigars, the regular production CAO Concert and the limited edition CAO Hurricane.

Update (December 6, 2013) — It recently came to light that the T59 is not the winning cigar from Boutique Blends’ Wild Pack promotion, but rather a new line of its own in the Quattro series.

On Thursday evening, Cary Bischoff, a rep for Boutique Blends in the northwest US, posted this comment on the CigarFederation.com forums:

There’s some confusion regarding the WildPack voting and new blend selection, so I hope to clear that up a bit.  The blend announced in the Cigar Insider this week had the designation T59.  According to Rafael Nodal it’s an awesome blend that will be used as a new release in the “Quattro” line, which currently has the F55 on store shelves.  However, that blend designation, T59, does not appear in the current selection of blends found in the WildPack!  The closest number to that designation would be the T19.  Different blend.  The WildPack voting will decide the successor to the Aging Room M356, not for the Quattro line.  Voting is still on for the WildPack, none of those 5 blends have been selected yet!

 Hank Bischoff, Vice President of Boutique Blends, and Cary’s brother, confirmed those details with halfwheel on Friday morning, including that Wild Pack voting remains open. It is unclear what led to the confusion in the original Cigar Insider article.

Update (December 9, 2013) — Boutique Blends released a press release about the Quattro T59; you can find it here.

Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for Major League Baseball, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.