Awards season is back.
As is our tradition, we kick off our week of awards with a look at the best-looking cigars and cigar packaging from the previous year. This is the fifth year we've done this award and a total of 26 cigars were nominated. In order to be eligible, the cigar must debut in 2016, the packaging must be original—meaning it cannot simply be a new size of an existing line or existing packaging barely modified—and humidors are excluded unless that's the only way to purchase the cigar.
For the winner, two of the three of those rules were really important as it shipped only a few weeks before the end of the year and is a humidor.
Each of the four halfwheel reviewers were allowed to nominate any cigar for the packaging list. And all four of us voted on the top 10. For the first time in the packaging awards history, the winner was unanimous.
