1502 Aniversario 10 Toro

Global Premium Cigars

• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: Tabacalera AJ Fernandez Cigars de Nicaragua
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Habano)
• Binder: Mexico (San Andrés)
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 50
• Vitola: Toro
• MSRP: $14 (Box of 10, $140)
• Release Date: July 2022
• Original Score: 91

In an industry that loves to celebrate anniversaries—both minor and major ones—there are just three cigars on the 2022 Top 25 whose names explicitly honor an anniversary. In this case, it’s the 10th anniversary of Enrique Sanchez’s Global Premium Cigars, the company behind the 1502 brand.

There are a lot of companies that make cigars in Nicaragua, but Sanchez is part of a very select group of people who is actually Nicaraguan by birth. Most of the companies whose cigars are made in Estelí, Nicaragua are owned by people who had to fly to the country for its cigarmaking prowess. For Sanchez, it was a drive to the north from his hometown of Managua. He originally wanted to enter the cigar business as a tobacco broker, but after conversations with Nestor Plasencia Sr., he opted to start his own brand, which launched in 2012.

For the most part, Sanchez has used the Plasencias to craft the various 1502 blends, but to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary, and he turned to AJ Fernandez.

AJ Fernandez makes a lot of cigars for a lot of different companies. The upsides are many: efficiencies, the power and familiarity of the AJ name, and a factory that is filled with tobaccos. But there is a very real downside: the blends can taste very similar to one another. For better or worse, the 1502 Aniversario 10 doesn’t immediately stand out as a cigar that comes from Fernández’s palatial factory in Estelí.

Like other 1502 cigars, the 10 Aniversario has a slightly covered foot where the wrapper covers the rim of the bottom of the cigar, but the center part shows the filler, something the company calls a “cigar lock.” While this might be one of the more robust cigars within the 1502 portfolio, it’s medium to medium-plus, a bit milder than what I think of as the signature AJF blending style. At the back of the band, there’s a simple, yet poignant message: Relax & Enjoy. — Charlie Minato.