Readers’ Choice Awards 2023: Winner Announced

In December, we asked you to nominate a cigar for halfwheel’s first-ever Readers’ Choice Award(s). Last month, we asked you to vote on the six finalists. Today, the winner is announced.

Readers’ Choice Award 2023 Winner: Mi Querida Black

Turns out, our readers are also fans of the Mi Querida Black.

This is a highly-lauded cigar. It was the top cigar on The Consensus 2022. This past year, Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust expanded the number of vitolas from one to three. It’s a good cigar. Our reviews say so. The Consensus 2022 said so. Now, you said so.

Congrats to Steve Saka and the teams at Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust and Nicaragua American Cigars S.A. for yet another award for Mi Querida Black. You might need another bookshelf for all the trophies at this point. (We are going to make one for you for this award.)

 

The final results were:

1. Mi Querida Black (Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust) — 31.23 percent
2. Blackened ‘M81’ by Drew Estate — 20.07 percent
3. Angel Cuesta (J.C. Newman) — 14.93 percent
4. Knuckle Sandwich Connecticut (Knuckle Sandwich/Espinosa) — 11.91 percent
5. Intemperance Voldstead VO 1920 (RoMa Craft Tobac) — 11.16 percent
6. Maria Lucia (Luciano Cigars) — 10.70 percent

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I also attempted to ask consumers what company they smoked the most cigars from in 2023. Unfortunately, my poorly worded prompt led to some people answering by the country, the name of the store or even when they smoked the cigars. That said, the vast majority of people who were asked the question responded with a cigar company or brand.

After sorting through the results, these are the top five companies in response to the following: Of the cigars you smoked in 2023, I smoked the most amount of cigars from _____.

1. Drew Estate — 14.54 percent
2. Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust — 11.52 percent
3. Arturo Fuente — 7.29 percent
4. Tatuaje — 5.82 percent
5. Oliva — 4.19 percent

An example of how I find this data interesting is that three of the top five didn’t have cigars up for the Readers’ Choice Award.

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Some of you may not have been asked that poorly worded prompt. That’s because the survey would take you down a different path depending on how you answered certain questions. Most of these questions were related to better understanding our audience, the cigars you smoke and how you consume halfwheel. We will use this data to help us make a better version of this website. Unfortunately, it’s quite a busy week here, so I haven’t had time to analyze much of the rest of the data. I’m also unsure if we will publish the full results, but perhaps that will come in the future as well.

For the thousands of you who nominated cigars and/or participated in the survey, thank you. It was just a few minutes of your time, but I really do appreciate it and hope we can put your responses to good use. I’m also open to suggestions for the 2024 Readers’ Choice Award. It should probably just be “Award” as we are only giving out one trophy.

Speaking of a busy week, here’s the rest of the schedule for Awards Week 2023:

• Jan. 16, 2024 (Tuesday) — Factory of the Year
• Jan. 17, 2024 (Wednesday) — Company of the Year
• Jan. 18, 2024 (Thursday) 12 p.m. CST — Packaging Awards
• Jan. 19, 2024 (Friday) 12 p.m. CST — Top 25 Cigars
• Jan. 22, 2024 (Monday) 12 p.m. CST — The Consensus 2023