Aging Room Quattro F55 Concerto S

Aging Room cigars premiered in 2011 and the Dominican brand has been making waves in the cigar industry ever since. Created by Oliveros’s president Rafael Nodal, the Aging Room cigar line specializes in limited short-batch cigars made from very good and very rare tobaccos that are available in quantities too low for most brands’ production quotas. In 2012, Nodal created a spinoff company called Boutique Blends Cigars which features the Aging Room cigar line as well as his other line, Swag Cigars.

The Aging Room Quattro F55 was created by Nodal with cigarmaker Jochi Blanco at his factory, Tabacalera La Palma. Since its creation, it has not only received a 93 point rating from Cigar Aficionado but it also ranked as the number 2 cigar of the year in 2013 from them as well! The Concerto name is a nod to Nodal’s musical background, as he is an accomplished pianist and violin player. The Quattro refers to the box-pressed shape while the F55 represents the month (February) and day of the year the blend was finalized (February 24th). The blend of this highly rated stogie features tobaccos grown on Blanco’s farm and features Cuban-seed Dominican fillers and a Dominican binder. The wrapper was grown on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but as the story goes, was found sitting around at a German cigar production company before they closed for business. The end result is a perfectly constructed, extremely flavorful cigar that has nuances of pepper, tobacco, and coffee. Try this small-batch cigar with a Cuba Libre: rum, coke, and lime.

Though tobacco is indigenous to Hispaniola, the tobacco industry in the Dominican Republic existed in the shadow of Cuba’s dominance through the 1960s. When the exodus of Cuban cigar makers began in the wake of the revolution, many decided the Dominican Republic would be ideal for the resumption of their livelihoods. Unrest in Nicaragua in the 1980s fueled the Dominican cigar industry further. The country now makes more than half of the premium cigars imported into the U.S.

The Cibao Valley and the nearby city of Santiago are the center of cigar production in the Dominican Republic. Three main varieties are grown here: the mild and native Olor Dominicano; the intense Piloto Cubano, brought from the Vuelta Abajo of Cuba; and San Vicente, a milder and more acidic Piloto hybrid. Dominican puros were once unheard of as it was widely thought impossible to grow quality wrapper leaf on the island, but new growing techniques are now allowing some exceptional puros to be produced.