My Father Humidor Deluxe

My Father Cigars, Inc.

• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: My Father Cigars S.A.
• Wrapper: Nicaragua (Corojo 99)
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 6 1/2 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Toro Extra
• MSRP: $100 (Humidor of 100, $10,000)
• Release Date: Jan. 27, 2021
• Number of Cigars Released: 70 Humidors of 100 Cigars (7,000 Total Cigars)
• Original Score: 92

The writing was on the wall.

That was my thought after re-reading the review I wrote of the cigar that I had just learned would take first place on our Top 25 for 2021. So many lines in my review of the My Father Humidor Deluxe explain why this cigar took the top honor, so many lines make me want to go grab one of the two remaining unsmoked cigars we have left and light one up.

There are a number of reasons why we don’t have very many of them left, unfortunately, none of them are related to me getting to smoke more of these excellent cigars throughout 2021. Rather, most of them are tied to the same reason why the cigar is called Humidor Deluxe. And those are the same reasons why shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t remember seeing it on the shelf of your local store; it probably was never at your local store, let alone on a shelf.

The cigar was released as part of a package that included a large Elie Bleu humidor that My Father says it was created to celebrate the 70th birthday of José “Pepín” García, the family’s patriarch. A total of 75 humidors were made—though the García family kept five for themselves—and each humidor that was sold came with 100 special cigars. Retailers were asked to not split the cigars from the humidor, meaning that the only way to buy these cigars was a $10,000 transaction, before taxes.

As for the cigar, there’s not some convoluted story about how these were the first cigars the company rolled at its factory, or that the tobaccos used were the best the company has ever grown, or that Pepín made the molds himself. Instead it’s described simply as a 6 1/2 x 52 toro—a vitola My Father has used for flashier limited editions before this—made entirely of tobaccos from the family’s farms in Nicaragua.

If only every 6 1/2 x 52 Nicaraguan puro tasted this good. What struck me about this cigar is that it didn’t taste like a My Father cigar, and not just when it comes to the signature Pepín pepper found in many creations in the My Father Cigars, Inc. portfolio. Similarly, it doesn’t really taste like anything I’ve encountered from any of the cigars that the factory has made for the García family or its various clients. To this day, I’m not even sure what the most similar cigar would be this, regardless of who made it.

It was a tour de force of complexity and richness, a cigar that delivers not only a long list of different flavors but also a wide range of sensations, most uniquely—the part that sets it apart—a cigar that found a peaceful end. Many great cigars end with a feeling that you wish you had another half hour left to continue enjoying them, but this was a cigar that ends with grace. Outside of a slightly better burn line, we can’t really ask a cigar to do any more than what this did.

It gave us everything we could want in a cigar and so we’ll give its creators a trophy. — Charlie Minato.