Meerapfel Meir Robusto

Meerapfel Cigar

• Country of Origin: Undisclosed
• Factory: Undisclosed
• Wrapper: Undisclosed
• Binder: Undisclosed
• Filler: Undisclosed
• Length: 4 7/8 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 50
• Vitola: Robusto
• MSRP: $42 (Box of 25, $1,050)
• Release Date: February 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Original Score: 92

When it comes to names in the cigar industry that should be known but aren’t, one of the first that comes to mind is Meerapfel, as in the Meerapfel family that not only saved Cameroon-grown tobacco from extinction in the early 1990s but also helped bring it to prominence by way of cigars made by Arturo Fuente, General Cigar Co. and others. While the Meerapfel name might not be as well known as it should be, that has begun to change in recent years as the family has gotten back into making cigars, capped off by Meerapfel Cigar, a series of high-end, elegantly designed cigars with very limited productions.

One of two lines released in 2023—along with the Ernest—this cigar is named for Meir Meerapfel, who set up the Meerapfel cigar factory in the village of Untergrombach, Germany, in 1876. The company discloses nothing about the blend, leaving it up to the smoker to figure out just what might be in the blend.

While we won’t play the guessing game here, whatever tobacco was used produced a blend that Brooks Whittington described as “complex, delicate and exceedingly well-balanced” in his review, and which the other panel members echoed. Nearly everyone also praised the combination of the retrohale and the profile, particularly in the second third, when the two combined for some truly special puffs that propelled the cigar into the top 10 of this year’s list. — Patrick Lagreid.