After several years of postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cigar festivals are beginning to come back, and you can now register to attend the Puro Sabor Festival in Nicaragua, which happens Jan. 23-27, 2023.

As in previous years, the festival includes visits to several tobacco farms and cigar factories, with lunches often held on the farms or in nearby curing barns. Then, nightly dinners celebrate not just cigars and the people who produce them, but several elements of Nicaraguan cultural heritage.

After attendees arrive in the capitol city of Managua, they are taken to the colonial city of Granada for the festival’s first day. They will then be driven to Estelí for a series of visits to many of the most well-known cigar producers in the country. Attendees have multiple opportunities both to interact with their favorite cigar makers and see the process of a cigar from a seed in the soil to the finished product.

This year’s festival is priced at $2,500 for a single registration and $4,600 for a double registration, which includes hotels, meals, transportation between festival events, a guayabera, t-shirt, a commemorative box of cigars, souvenirs and daily cigars during visits to facilities and the nightly dinners. It does not include airfare.

The Puro Sabor Festival is put on by the Cámara Nicaragüense de Tabacaleros (Nicaragua Tobacco Chamber), an organization made up of approximately 26 cigar manufacturers in the country.

Overall Score

Avatar photo

Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for MLB.com, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.