After introducing seven new products at last year’s show, Fratello has come to the 2022 PCA Convention & Trade Show with just one new creation.

Brand owner Omar de Frias is a former NASA project manager, who founded the brand in 2013. However, in the past few years Fratello has become so popular that Frias quit his NASA job to work on the cigar brand full-time.

Fratello’s booth is exactly the same as last year, but the openness of the space—there are no walls at all—works well with Frias’ massive stature.  In addition, the main sections include an attractive but compact display in the middle, as well as a large backdrop to one side that is printed with a big Fratello logo.

Fratello ViceVersa

As a finished product, the ViceVersa is only slightly easier to explain than it is to actually produce. The 7 x 50 cigar features triple caps on both ends, and according to Frias, the cigar is designed to start very differently flavor-wise depending on which end you cut and smoke.

  • Wrapper: Ecuador (HVA)
  • Binder: Indonesia
  • Filler: Nicaragua (Condega & Estelí) & U.S.A. (Pennsylvania)
  • Fratello ​ViceVersa (7 x 52) — $15 (Box of 12, $180)

Production: 2,000 Boxes of 12 Cigars (24,000 Total Cigars)

Release Date: Oct. 1, 2022

Update (Feb. 15, 2023) — Fratello has clarified the correct styling of the name is ViceVersa.

Overall Score

Avatar photo

Brooks Whittington

I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.