Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo

In August 1992, an ambitious 27-year-old decided to start a cigar company as a side hustle to his full-time job as an air traffic controller. He created cigars that used an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper and fillers from Central America, a departure from the mild profiles that dominated the time and used Connecticut shade-grown tobacco. He worked his way into stores around the area, steadily increasing sales and spurring the need to move to a bigger facility, initially trying Tampa, Fla., before making the move to Estelí, Nicaragua, where his business had the space and labor to flourish.

This is a bit of the origin story of a company originally called Nick’s Sticks, but that is now well-known throughout the cigar world as Perdomo Cigars. While the company officially celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2022, some might not consider the real celebration to have happened until 2023, when the company released the cigar line commemorating the occasion.

The Perdomo 30th Anniversary debuted at the 2023 PCA Convention & Trade Show and followed what has become a familiar formula for Perdomo and its new releases: three blends with seemingly a common binder and filler but three different wrapper options, and then released in the same five sizes that have become staples in the company’s portfolio.

 

Like a number of lines from Perdomo, all three blends in the Perdomo 30th Anniversary use what the company describes as Cuban-seed, Nicaraguan-grown tobacco for the binder and filler, but does not disclose what region of the country they come from or what varietal of seeds are used.

As for the wrappers, the Connecticut blend’s wrapper comes from Ecuador, while the Maduro and Sun Grown both come from Nicaragua. Again, Perdomo doesn’t disclose any specifics about those two leaves other than that one is a maduro while the other was grown in direct sunlight. All three wrappers also come with age statements of 15 years and a note that they have undergone aging in bourbon barrels.

Nick Perdomo Jr. said that the 30th Anniversary “encapsulates not only the essence of our team’s dedication to the finest quality and craftsmanship, but it also represents our longstanding commitment to our cherished patrons.”

All three blends are offered in the same five sizes and at the same five price points, and, befitting of the anniversary, come in boxes of 30 cigars.

That’s not a typo either, as four of the five cigars measure 54-ring gauge, while the fifth cigar is a 6 x 60. The torpedo is the only figurado in the group.

The Perdomo 30th Anniversary is a regular production line that began shipping in mid-November of 2023, but the initial distribution is somewhat limited, as only 75 retailers were selected to carry the first shipment, a decision to ensure that the company would be able to supply those retailers with the cigars on a regular basis. The company has said that number will increase in the future.

• Cigar Reviewed: Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: Tabacalera Perdomo
• Wrapper: Nicaragua (Sun Grown)
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 7 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 54
• Vitola: Torpedo
• MSRP: $14 (Box of 30, $420)
• Release Date: November 17, 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

If there is one thing that always stands out when I see Perdomo cigars on the shelf, it is just how pointed the company makes the heads of its torpedo vitolas. I might need to figure out how to measure this, but Perdomo seems to have the longest, most pronounced taper on the market, and this Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo is no exception. The wrapper and bands play wonderfully off each other, with the leaf having a bit of a clay hue that plays off the red in the bands, with the gold accenting both quite well. While there are some decently-sized veins, I don’t find them distracting, and the wrappers all look even in color with a bit of oily sheen. They are also soft and smooth to the touch. In terms of the roll quality, all three cigars look very good, though they are all a bit softer in density than I would have expected. I don’t get a particularly distinct flavor from the wrapper, while the foot offers an aroma that is slightly sweet with a bit of red chili pepper—or in one case, the smell of Cholula Sweet Habanero sauce—along with damp lumberyard. The cold draw is maybe a tick open but far from loose, and that’s with a fairly conservative clip of the head. The flavor is somewhat subdued and leaves me racking my brain for how to describe it. There are hints of dried leaves and an underlying, very mild butterscotch, but notably, no real pepper.

The Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo starts off with a profile that is very similar to that of the cold draw, though a bit more wood-forward with a touch of simple syrup sweetness on the finish, though as the flavors intertwine and linger the sweetness moves towards amber sugar. There’s also a bit of creaminess that leads to some black pepper, making for a pair of flavor handoffs and an interesting sensation depending on the particular cigar and what my palate seems to gravitate towards. One of the three cigars gets an appreciably great contribution from the cream, leading me to rethink my overall impression from the first inch of the cigar. It takes a couple of puffs for the retrohales to wake up, but when they do, there’s some crisp—maybe even sharp—black pepper in this section, except when the creaminess softens it a touch. A bit of earthiness begins to emerge as well, though it trails the more dominant wood and pepper, which makes me think this might be a habano-seed leaf.  Retrohales add just a bit more pepper at the end of the first third and easily establish themselves as the most lively way to experience what this cigar has to offer. Flavor is medium-plus with a few puffs hitting medium-full, though the more medium body of the smoke keeps it from really imparting a stronger sensation on my taste buds. Strength is fairly mild thus far. In terms of construction, the first third is very good with few problems as long as the cigar gets a regular puff. The ash is also fairly impressive thus far, building up nicely but not always giving me a lot of confidence about its durability.

A light woodiness and some bright pepper continue to drive the profile as the Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo gets into its second third, with the most noticeable development being a more lingering, slow-burn finish on my palate. There are very sporadic and short-lived spots where I find a bit of sour chalk coming out, yet I don’t see any tar on the heads of the cigars, which leads me to wonder just what might be going on with the tobacco in these spots. Similarly, there are spots where I get a slightly waxy flavor that I can’t decide whether it’s more mineral or metallic as it hits my lips on the finish, much in the way a flavored or sweetened tip cigar would. Thankfully, they are brief and the flavor gets back on track fairly quickly after these detours, except for one cigar that can’t quite seem to shake the flavors. Around the midpoint of the cigar, I notice that the intensity of the pepper has settled down a bit on the palate, while retrohales still have a good amount of nose-tingling pepper, but it emerges a bit later in the process of getting the smoke through my nostrils. In the first third, it was immediate and upfront, now it is buffered by a bit of creaminess as the first sensation. The second third has a couple of stumbles in the combustion department that necessitate a relight, but otherwise, the cigars all smoke well. I don’t want to call the combustion finicky, but it seems that the farther I get into the cigar, the need to puff on it and the frequency required in order to stay lit increases a touch. Flavor is medium for the most part, body is medium and strength is medium-minus.

The final third of the Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo adds a bit of creaminess to the profile that helps differentiate this section from the first two, though the core notes are the same. The wood tastes a bit drier and now is contributing some fragrance to the aroma and retrohales. One cigar continues with the bitter chalk note, again leading me to inspect the head and finding a small brown tar mark on my finger, forcing me to clip off a few millimeters and rid the cigar of the taste, though it may be too late to salvage its score. It also means I get a draw that is more open than I would like, something with which the cigar has not struggled thus far. The cigar gets a bit more robust and pepper-forward in the final third, a profile that I tend to think of as coming from habano-seed leaves, but also with a bit more dry earth than I’ve noticed before. If it hasn’t happened yet, I also pick up the sudden arrival of some chalk just ahead of where the cigar begins its taper. This new mix of flavors carries the cigar to the end, finishing medium-plus in flavor, medium-plus in body, and medium in strength. Construction on the whole is very good, though I found myself needing to be fairly mindful of taking regular puffs in order to keep the cigar burning.

Final Notes

• One of the big developments in Perdomo Cigars’ history is when Nick Perdomo Jr. brought his father into the company to help with growing the business and then eventually to oversee operations of the company’s Nicaraguan factory. Both Nick Perdomo Sr. and his father, Silvio Perdomo, worked in the Cuban cigar industry.
• Now, Nicholas Perdomo III works for the company as its national director of sales, both a testament to a multi-generational family in the cigar business and about how the company brought together those generations.
• Perdomo Cigars made a line called Genuine Counterfeit Cuban Cigars, which used the Cuban cigar seal stamped with COUNTERFEIT! in bright red ink.
• I’ve been fortunate to visit Tabacalera Perdomo in Estelí, Nicaragua a couple of times and it is an impressive facility, maybe even a compound given the number of buildings and things going on. Notably, the company’s box factory is in there, and seeing the process of boards turn into cigar boxes is quite impressive.
• I most recently visited the factory in January 2023 as part of the Puro Sabor Festival.
• In thinking a bit more about this torpedo vitola, it also seems like I don’t see as many torpedoes on the market, but rather an abundance of belicosos, which have a much shorter taper when it comes to the head of the cigar.
• The bands on all three cigars were quite well attached, so much so that I wasn’t able to remove any of them cleanly. None caused damage to the wrapper, but the extra handling had me a bit nervous that some of the wrapper might come off.
• I’ve not yet had enough experience with the other two blends in the Perdomo 30th Anniversary Line to offer a real comparison, though I would expect them to offer profile differences similar to other lines that use the same trio of wrapper options, with the Connecticut lighter but still flavorful and the Maduro a bit richer and maybe sweeter.
• Strength was a bit of a wild card; I found that the earlier in the day that I smoked the cigar, the more nicotine I felt. Call it medium-strength on the whole, but smoking one pre-lunchtime without much in my system had me looking for some white sugar.
• The cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was two hours and 30 minutes on average.
• Site sponsors Atlantic Cigar Co. and Famous Smoke Shop carry the Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Torpedo. Corona Cigar Co. and JR Cigar carry the other four vitolas, but not the Torpedo.