Liga Privada Year of the Rat Gets Second 2022 Release

There will be a second shipment of the Liga Privada Year of the Rat heading to stores later this month. Drew Estate has announced that it will ship a second batch of the Year of the Rat to select stores in “mid-October.” This marks the first time the company has released the cigar twice in one year.

The Year of the Rat is a 5 1/2 x 46 corona gorda that uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper over a Brazilian binder and fillers from Honduras and Nicaragua.

The cigar debuted in 2016 as an exclusive release for the Drew Estate Lounge inside the BB&T Center, home to the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the team’s only appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals, a season that became known as the Year of the Rat after one such rodent made its way into the Panthers’ locker room, was killed by player Scott Mellanby with his hockey stick, who went onto score three goals that night with that same stick. That led goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck to coin the term “rat trick,” a play on the familiar term hat trick that describes a player scoring three goals in the same game.

It has since returned in 2020, 2021 and May 2022. The original version came without gold foil, though subsequent versions have used the foil.

Drew Estate no longer discloses the production numbers of limited items. Pricing for the cigar remains $17.12 per cigar and $171.20 per box of 10 cigars, the same as it was for the May shipment. This release is limited to stores that are part of the Drew Diplomat Retail Program.

There is one difference, an image used for the fall release shows the cigar using a foot band that reads 2023, the May released used a foot band that said 2022.