Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary Limited Edition

Whenever we write about a Padrón cigar that has a number in its name, we tend to a detailed explanation of all of the different numbers that Padrón uses and the different things they reference. To some degree, I believe we are going to need to start doing that with the various My Father anniversary cigars.

This year—2023—marks the 20th anniversary of the Don Pepín García brand. To celebrate, My Father has announced a trio of cigars, though only one of the three has gone on sale. That would be the standard Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary Limited Edition.

It’s a Nicaraguan puro that uses a habano 2000 wrapper. As with so many special limited edition cigars from the García family over the years, it comes in a 6 1/2 x 52 toro extra size and uses some of the family’s pelo de oro tobacco in the filler. Pelo de oro, Spanish for golden hair, is noted for its golden appearance, though it is perhaps more notable because Cuba banned the seed due to its propensity to develop mold.

A total of 5,000 boxes of 20 cigars were made, with 3,900 boxes going to stores in the U.S. and 1,100 boxes designated for international retailers.

 

The company has also announced two other cigars to mark the 20th anniversary of the Don Pepín García brand: the Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary Limited Edition Humidor Ecuadorian Connecticut and Nicaragua Corojo 99. As the names imply, those cigars will come in a special humidor—made by the French company Elie Bleu—and will use different blends. Each humidor will come with 100 cigars, 50 each of the two different wrapper options. There will be just 75 humidors made. Pricing and a release date have not been announced for the humidor release, which was shown off at the 2023 PCA Convention & Trade Show.

My Father also released cigars for the 10th and 15th anniversaries of the Don Pepín García brand. Those cigars were packaged in individual coffins, while the 20th anniversary cigars are not.

• Cigar Reviewed: Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary Limited Edition
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: My Father Cigars S.A.
• Wrapper: Nicaragua (Habano 2000)
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 6 1/2 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Toro Extra
• MSRP: $40 (Box of 20, $800)
• Release Date: August 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: 5,000 Boxes of 20 Cigars (100,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

As I’d expect from a high-priced offering from My Father, this appears to be a well-rolled cigar with a relatively dark brown wrapper—not yet in the broadleaf darkness—with some well-integrated veins. Two of the three cigars remind me of some of the first cigars I smoked from My Father: strong notes of milk chocolate and red pepper with minor scents of ammonia, candied walnuts and saffron. The third cigar has a weird aroma that reminds me of artificial lime with muted minerals. Notably, none of the aromas from the first two cigars are present. That said, the feet of the three cigars more or less smell the same: a fuller mixture of cocoa and red pepper with less ammonia. The cold draws differ: one cigar has the red pepper and milk cocoa with bitter coffee, the second cigar has lots of chocolate but none over the pepper with acidity, tree bark and creaminess, and the third cigar—the one with the weird aroma—tastes like someone tried flavoring a cigar with Tang. It’s incredibly weird and I can smell the lime scent coming from the wrapper.

Given how the cigars smelled, I was expecting the Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary to come out of the gate heavy, but it does not. Instead, it’s a medium-plus mixture of grains, acorns, leather and some dry toastiness towards the end. At its strongest, the first puff is medium-plus in flavor intensity and there’s no heavy dose of nicotine. About five minutes into the third cigar, it’s apparent that something is off. Whatever that artificial flavor I smelled and tasted on the cold draw is, it’s not going away. It creates a more bitter and muted profile and does some weird things to my mouth, more on that in the Final Notes section. Focusing on the other two cigars, the profile is led by earthiness and some woodiness with bread crust, acorns and white rice flavors as accents. There’s a point in the second cigar where parts of the flavor profile distinctly taste like sushi rice, as in white rice mixed with that vinegar. It’s startling how close it tastes to sushi rice. That flavor only shows up in less than 10 percent of the puffs, typically overshadowed by the woodiness, but it’s the highlight of the first third. Given that, I suppose it’s not surprising that a rice cake flavor makes its way into the finish, joining the earthiness and woodiness for the top spot in the flavor profile. Secondary notes include pepper, a building toastiness and faint hints of sweetness. Retrohales turn up the toastiness a lot; it also add a spiciness and/or dryness to the earthiness, as well as new flavors like nuttiness and sunflower seeds. During the finish, cinnamon, white pepper and toastiness mix with burnt chocolate chip cookies and leather. Flavor is medium-full to full, body is medium-full and strength is medium. Construction on all three cigars is excellent during the first third.

The initial parts of the second third of the Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary see an uptick in spiciness. Nuttiness, dry bread, leather and a flavor that reminds me of the bottom of the bag of popcorn—elements of saltiness, starchiness and some butter—emerge. Again, it’s a lot of flavors that would be on the same part of the flavor wheel, which makes it much more difficult to pick up what’s going on. As the final third approaches, the cigar is getting noticeably toastier. The finish preludes the toasty transition as toasted wheat bread flavors are very prevalent. There’s some brown sugar sweetness—at times more like a graham cracker—under-extracted medium-dark espresso flavors, roasted flavors and white pepper. As you might have picked up, the finish is more interesting than the initial flavor. Retrohales have earthiness and toasted bread flavors over generic woods, buttered popcorn, an occasional berry sweetness and a funky bread flavor I can’t quite place. As the smoke leaves the nostrils, the buttered toast flavor becomes stronger and there are some perfumy flavors like a bergamot. That said, the general march towards toastiness is obvious. One cigar has a flavor that reminds me of the smell of sunflowers, but almost as if they were burnt, though I can’t say I’ve ever smelled a burnt sunflower. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength is medium, though building. The first of the three cigars I smoke is running into some combustion issues and requires a couple of touch-ups, though the other two cigars continue to display excellent construction.

At times, the toastiness can taste a bit like the smell of a charcoal fire. Other times, it retains that toasted wheat bread flavor. Sometimes, it’s more like charred earth. What’s consistent is that the toastiness has taken the top spot of the profile. It slightly edges out a dynamic earthiness that has a dense flavor that reminds me a bit of some Octomore whisky I had a handful of years ago. There are minor amounts of sweetness, herbs, woodiness, walnuts and a leather flavor that reminds me of the smell of a brand belt. None of the flavors are close to challenging the toastiness and earthiness. Retrohales add some saltiness but more or less just seem to slightly modify the earthiness and toastiness that I taste in the mouth. Once the finish hits, there’s still tons of toastiness, but I can taste some metallic sensations on the sides of my tongue, a sweetness underneath and some minor amounts of Thousand Island dressing. Flavor is full, body is full and strength is solidly medium-full and building. Two cigars need help with combustion, though the second cigar makes it start to finish without needing even a second touch-up.

Final Notes

• This also marks the 20th anniversary of the García family’s cigar businesses. They started El Rey de los Habanos, Inc. in 2003—the precursor to My Father Cigars, Inc.—producing cigars like the Don Pepín García Blue Label in a small shop in the Calle Ocho neighborhood of Miami.
• As a company, My Father has a design aesthetic and almost always sticks to it. It’s traditional, ornate, and flashy when it comes to limited releases like this. Whether you pick up a single cigar or the impressive box, there’s no question that this isn’t just some standard Don Pepín García Blue Label cigar. In that regard, I’d say mission accomplished.
• While cigar companies love celebrating anniversaries, I oftentimes overlook what the anniversaries mean. The fact that Don Pepín García Blue Label is still on shelves after 20 years is a reason to celebrate. In a world where new cigars are announced nearly every day, the staying power of a particular line is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in the cigar business. Admittedly, some lines probably should be discontinued, but very few companies would keep a line around for two decades even if it isn’t selling.
• The third cigar was a complete outlier, and I wonder if something like a hand lotion/soap or some other foreign substance came in contact with some of the cigar. From the smell of the wrapper to the cold draw to the taste of the cigar, something was off in a way that I can’t recall tasting in any other cigar I’ve smoked recently. From the first puff onward, the taste reminded me of the smell of some sort of mild oil and the tip of my tongue was coated with something that reminds me a bit of mineral oil, though I can’t say I’ve ever tasted mineral oil.
• It muted most of the complex flavor notes and instead seemed to accentuate the flavors that tend to be on the bitter side. The first third of that cigar was boring but fine. Unfortunately, the second half of the cigar was this monotonous, stale-tasting flavor. It wasn’t offensive, but not something I’d seek out for a handful of puffs, let alone more than an hour of smoking.
• The difference in scores between the average of the first two cigars and the third cigar was 10 points.
• Even a few hours after smoking, my tongue still felt the effects of whatever that was. It’s almost like I put soap in my mouth. Don’t worry mom, I haven’t said any curse words lately.
• That cigar aside, the other two cigars tended to have flavors that were quite similar. I don’t know the science behind it, but it didn’t seem to make it any easier to find flavors that weren’t in the leather, earthy, starchy category. I would have thought that this would have only made the spicier or sweeter flavors more obvious, but that didn’t seem to happen. It’s entirely possible that there wasn’t much spiciness or sweetness to be had.
• During the second third of my first cigar I wrote, “this cigar will not be winning any award for (pretty) ash formation.” At the halfway mark of the second third, I looked down and saw a remarkably even burn. None of the three cigars ever got the stack-of-dimes-like layers of ash, but the other two were about average-looking with incredible evenness.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time averaged two hours and 45 minutes.
• Site sponsors Atlantic Cigar Co., Cigars Direct and Famous Smoke Shop carry the Don Pepín García 20th Anniversary Limited Edition.