Rocky Patel Vintage 1979 Torpedo

Starting out as an entertainment lawyer and slowly making the transition into cigar maker, Rocky Patel not only made it through the cigar boom of the 1990s but has settled into being one of the most renowned cigar makers around. The Rocky Patel Vintage 1979 is part of the unparalleled success of the Vintage line. The first thing you will notice about this stunning smoke is the gorgeous, silky smooth, genuine Cameroon wrapper first cultivated in, you guessed it, 1979. Underneath this four decade aged wrapper is a feisty Mexican binder and a three-country blend of long fillers from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Hand rolled in Honduras, give the foot a toast and find a buttery draw with medium notes of spices and sweetness. This smoke is hard to find, so make sure to savor this one with a Café Mocha on a warm summer morning.

Honduras has been a tobacco growing and cigar manufacturing area for hundreds of years, but it was the Communist revolution in Cuba that really put Honduras on the map. In the 1960s, many Cuban cigar makers fled their homeland and arrived in Honduras to re-establish their way of life. The immigrants took advantage of the climate, soil, and geography, which were well-suited to tobacco growing, and began producing high quality cigars. The center of the Honduran cigar industry is the city of Danli and the nearby Jamastran Valley. The majority of the world’s pure Corojo tobacco is grown here, now that Cuba has stopped production of this iconic, spicy, and rich variety in favor of Corojo hybrids. Other important areas of Honduran cigar production include the Talanga Valley, Copan, and Trojes.