Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado

Since its debut in 2006, there’s little doubt that Drew Estate’s Liga Privida brand has become one of the more popular and sought-after brands. So much so that one of the common gripes I see about the brand—and in particular, the newest and more limited releases—is that they are hard, if not impossible, to find. That sentiment could seemingly be applied to the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario when it came out in December 2018. The release was originally limited to just 1,000 boxes of 10 cigars, a tiny run for a line like Liga Privada, but the cigars were only released in batches of 40 boxes per month, with 10 Drew Diplomat retailers getting just four boxes by way of a lottery.

But one group of consumers and retailers had an even tougher time getting the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario: those outside the U.S. So Drew Estate decided to remedy that by way of creating a new version of the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario just for its non-U.S. retailers and distributors, calling it the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado, a cigar that Jonathan Drew described as Drew Estate’s “love letter to the world.”

 

The cigar is a 6 x 52 toro, a very common vitola but with a very uncommon head design, one called a cola de pescado, or fishtail head. It’s the same style cap found on the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario that is available to U.S.-based retailers and a design that is said to take approximately two and a half minutes to complete.

As for the blend, the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado uses a Connecticut River Valley criollo-seed wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés Negro binder, and fillers from Honduras and Nicaragua. While the blend is similar to that of the U.S. version of the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario, the filler is different, as the U.S. version has fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania, including the infamous Green River One Sucker ligero. The resulting change is said to make the Selección de Mercado smoother than the original Liga Privada 10 Aniversario, according to the announcement made during a Drew Estate Freestyle Live event in August 2023.

“Liga Privada is notoriously bold, dense, hearty, earthy and robust…true to the Connecticut River Valley,” said Drew, co-founder and president of Drew Estate. “Seleccion de Mercado is different!!! It’s an experience of Liga Privada that’s truly unexpected, with the international cigar smoker at the forefront of our mind throughout our creative stages of development. The Selección de Mercado blend is like, ‘Yo homie, I didn’t think anybody could get a smoke like this in a cigar that’s not Cuban, but this Liga Privada nails it. That’s wild.”

The cigar debuted at a Sept. 10 event in Istanbul, Turkey that featured Pedro Gomez and which led up to the 2023 InterTabac trade show in Dortmund, Germany. Subsequent events were held in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in the second half of September.

As for pricing, the company has not issued an official MSRP, mainly because the cigar’s price will vary widely based on which country it is being purchased in and the taxes that are added onto the price. During the Freestyle Live event, the company said pricing could range from $25 to $100 per cigar.

• Cigar Reviewed: Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: La Gran Fábrica Drew Estate
• Wrapper: U.S.A. (Connecticut Criollo)
• Binder: Mexico
• Filler: Honduras & Nicaragua
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Toro
• MSRP: Undisclosed
• Release Date: Sept. 10, 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: Undisclosed
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

The Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado has a mottled wrapper with a vein structure that stands out from a visual perspective. The wrapper leaf is on the dry side, with a matte finish and fine texture, a color that feels like a contrast to the richer, darker colors of some other cigars that wear a Liga Privada band. The cigar is very firm and appears to be rolled very well, particularly when it comes to the cap and head of the cigar. As for the covered foot, there is some variation in how much tobacco gets folded down; on one cigar, I can clearly see the filler, while on the other two, I can not. The covered foot has an aroma of dry tree bark, unflavored beef jerky, some dry leaves, as well as familiar dry tobacco flavor. Even with the covered foot, the airflow on the cold draw is very smooth and shows no sign of impedance. The flavor is smooth and mellow, a thinner replication of the aroma, though minus the meatiness of the beef jerky, but with a bit more of a thick, honey graham cracker sweetness at times.

The Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado starts off on a dry and peppery note, with a flavor marked by pencil wood, old and dry lumber and a decent amount of black pepper that shows better through the nose than it does on the taste buds via puffs. The first puffs can be a bit funky at times, not quite sour but just a bit off. It doesn’t last long, but two cigars share the trait of a less-than-ideal first puff. Once things get sorted out, I get a bit of Honduran terroir setting the base note of the profile, while black pepper accents on puffs and accentuates on retrohales. As the flavor unfolds, the terroir opens up to reveal a bit of chalk, which creates a widespread tingling throughout my mouth. Retrohales pick up a bit of chalk as well but are still driven by pepper, now a lighter white pepper than the heavier black pepper from just a few puffs ago. The Honduran terroir steps up its intensity, with a bit of Mexican terroir joining in to give the base note some depth and complexity. The aroma at the end of this section reminds me of a smoked old fashioned, hopefully, a sign of interesting flavor progressions to come in the second third. Flavor is medium-plus but can go up to medium-full with retrohales, while the body has a thickness that I’d describe as medium-minus, with strength still in mild territory. The ash is a little funky in the first third, flakier than I would like and leads to lots of sweeping up of small flakes with my hands. Construction is good otherwise, with a very smooth draw, fairly even burn line, and plenty of smoke.

While the cigar doesn’t pick up much of the smoked old fashioned as the second third gets underway, the competing terroir notes swap positions as I get more Mexican terroir and less of the Honduran, and I’m now beginning to wonder if I’m tasting a bit more influence from the wrapper. The flavor profile is good but not the most complex that I have tasted, and I notice that it lacks the depth and richness that I tend to think of from other Liga Privada releases. I’m hesitant to say that the profile feels restrained, but it does feel like it’s not hitting the full range of flavor depth. Right around the midway point, the intensity of the black pepper takes off, lighting up my nose without even taking a retrohale, simply by way of what ambient smoke happens to find my nostrils off a puff. Past the midway point, some heavier earth comes along, and the cigar finally begins to show a bit deeper profile. A lighter earth and a very generic wood flavor fill out the next layer and hit the sides of my tongue, while some restrained black pepper provides some tingle on my tongue for the finish. Flavor is a heartier medium-plus, body is medium and strength is medium-minus. Construction is still good with a smooth draw, even burn line, good smoke production, and a bit more durable ash than in the first third.

Entering the final third of the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado, I find myself waiting for some dramatic change to come along and kick the flavor profile into a more dynamic, or at least developed spot, yet it doesn’t seem to be happening. The flavor is fine, fairly rich in terms of earth but also not really singing any one note particularly well, let alone performing with the complexity of multiple contributors to the flavor. Across three cigars, little more than the well-established earth and pepper combination stands out, leaving me with one of the thinnest sets of notes for a cigar in recent memory. Other than that first puff, there’s nothing I have found to be disagreeable, but in terms of finding something interesting from the profile, this has been a long, silent car ride. Flavor finishes medium-plus, body is medium-plus and strength is medium-minus. Construction remains good, though I had to relight the cigar more than I would have liked, but I will chalk that up to waning interest in the cigar and thus less frequent puffs than a more dynamic profile would have commanded.

Final Notes

• Seeing how well the heads were constructed reminded me of my largely futile attempts to roll cigars at various points over the years. The craftsmanship and dexterity it takes to create these fanned caps with a coil of tobacco around them is quite impressive.
• And to think that the cap will hopefully get some appreciation before being cut off and left in the bottom of an ashtray feels a bit bittersweet.
• Smoking the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado makes me wish I had been in the blending room when this cigar was developed, as I would have loved to know the kind of profile that the company was going for, as well as what the perceived differences are between U.S. and non-U.S. consumers.
• One cigar’s wrapper appeared to have a small chunk missing along one its seam lines. It blended in fairly well, but in the right light was pretty obvious.
• Smoke production didn’t quite match up to a level I would define as Liga-esque, to borrow a term that has been used several times on this site.
• The pricing on this cigar will likely vary quite widely based on the country in which it is purchased. We paid $195 for a box from an online retailer in Hong Kong.
• While almost every cigar sold in the U.S. that we write about has an MSRP, for those that follow announcements about Cuban cigars, the lack of MSRP is a familiar situation.
• I didn’t get much strength from the Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado. The final third gets close, but never reaches a level that has me feeling any strength from the cigar.
• Drew Estate advertises on halfwheel.
• The cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel. Drew Estate provided a box of cigars but they were not used for this review.
• Final smoking time was three hours on average.

Win a Box of Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado

Update: Congrats to the winner: Andrew Hill.

Leave a comment on this post between now and Feb. 25, 2024 11:59 P.M. CST and you’ll be entered to win.

• Must be 21-years-old or older to enter.
• Only open to U.S. residents with a continental United States shipping address.
• Comments must be left on halfwheel.com. 
• Only one comment per person will be counted as an entry.
• Prize is (1) box of Liga Privada 10 Aniversario Selección de Mercado. Shipping to an address in the continental United States is included.
• One winner will be announced on Feb. 26, 2024. (There is only one winner.)
• Total value is $195.
• Contest rules are here.