Aging Room Quattro F55 Maduro Maestro

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 brand’s 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 original Aging Room Quattro F55 has quite the reputation; for those who aren’t familiar with it, the cigar was the highest rated non-Cuban on the Top 25 Cigars of the Year in 2013, receiving the #2 spot with an astounding 95-rating. To summarize, it’s a pretty awesome cigar. Never satisfied, Rafael decided to take that cigar – one of his most famous – and wrap it with a Mexican San Andrés maduro wrapper. Under this dark and oil-filled leaf is a Dominican Habano binder which tightly hugs a complex blend of Dominican long-fillers. Medium to full in strength, this smoke will lend flavors of earth, black pepper, chocolate, and oak. You may also note that each cigar is perfectly box-pressed with excellent construction. Pair it with a Cuba Libre.

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.