Red Meat Lovers Fritanga Coming to The Great Smoke Ahead of PCA 2025 Release

The Red Meat Lovers line from Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust will be getting a new size in 2025, as Steve Saka announced on Facebook that he will be releasing a 6 x 52 box-pressed toro vitola called Fritanga. The cigar will debut at the Red Meat Lovers dinner on March 14, 2025 that is part of The Great Smoke, an event put on by Smoke Inn, a South Florida retailer.

Saka calls the cigar a spicier variation of the Red Meat Lovers blend, but has not yet disclosed what changes to the cigar result in that description. As for pricing, in a reply to a comment on Facebook, he did say that it will “likely be a little more pricey, but not crazy.” Pricing has been in the $15 – $17 range for the regular production sizes thus far.

He has produced 200 bundles of 10 cigars for the dinner, but said that none will be sold at Smoke Inn or The Great Smoke. Instead, whatever cigars are left over from the dinner will be sent back to the company’s warehouse to hold for the 2025 PCA Convention & Trade Show, which is scheduled for April 11-14, 2025 in New Orleans, La.

The Red Meat Lovers line started in 2019 with a single 6 x 56 toro extra that was released as a collaboration between Smoke Inn, Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust and Red Meat Lovers Club, an organization that gathers for meat-centric events with a charitable aim. A year later, a second size—6 x 52—was added, again sold exclusively through Smoke Inn. In 2023, Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust added Red Meat Lovers to its regular production portfolio with four sizes, all named after beef:

• Red Meat Lovers Beef Stick (6 x 48)
• Red Meat Lovers Filet Mignon (5 x 54)
• Red Meat Lovers Ribeye (6 x 52)
• Red Meat Lovers Porterhouse (6 x 60)

As Saka notes in the comments below, the name for this new size comes from a style of Nicaraguan street food centered around grilling meat on an open flame.

The Red Meat Lovers blend was created to be paired with beef, with a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés negro binder, and fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania. The Red Meat Lovers line is produced by Nicaragua American Cigars S.A.