Red Meat Lovers Club Gets New Vitola for Second Release

Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust’s Red Meat Lovers Club is coming back to Smoke Inn, but this time in a new, slightly thinner and box pressed vitola.

The limited edition returns in a 6 x 52 box pressed toro vitola, a size that Steve Saka said “really helps to concentrate the flavor and provide a bit more oomph” via a Facebook post. The blend uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés negro binder, and fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania. It’s the same blend as the original version that debuted in 2019, though with the tobaccos proportioned differently due to the vitola. Saka described the profile as “robust, earthy, dark chocolate, meaty, bold” and adding that it was blended to be paired with a hearty meal of steak.

“You know how you are not supposed to say aloud which of your children is your favorite?” Saka asked in an email to halfwheel. “Screw that, this pressed toro format of the Red Meat Lovers liga is my hand’s down fave so far!”

This year’s release is being packaged in what are being called “meat boxes,” each containing 10 cigars, with pricing set at $12 per cigar. A total of 600 boxes were produced at Nicaragua American Cigars S.A. They are scheduled to go on sale on Dec. 9.

The Red Meat Lovers Club debuted in January 2019, coming in a 6 x 56 toro gordo vitola. Both sizes are part of Smoke Inn’s Microblend Series, an ongoing collection of small batch releases made for the retailer.

Images courtesy of Smoke Inn.