Selected Tobacco showed off the Alfonso Añejos cigar line at the 2022 PCA trade show, and now has started shipping them to select retailers across the country. The new line was created by Nelson Alfonso of Selected Tobacco. The Alfonso Añejos joins Selected Tobacco’s luxury lines: Atabey, Byron and Bandolero. Selected Tobacco was started by Nelson Alfonso to offer the market a cigar that is aged with a purpose. All the Selected Tobacco lines are placed into cedar lined rooms after they are rolled, then humidity is raised and lowered to allow the cigars to clean themselves with the cedar notes from two to five years.
Cedar is to cigars as oak is to wine. The years we take to age the cigars in this process have a purpose and we hope this is appreciated in the smoke.
Nelson Alfonso
The Alfonso Añejos line is aged in a separate room from the rest of the lines as this was an experiment performed by Alfonso after learning the complexity French Oak could offer. Some of the most famous wines in the world use French Oak barrels and this became an obsession to incorporate a new wood into the aging rooms for Nelson. The results after five years of post-roll age in Cedar and French Oak aging rooms are the Alfonso Añejos and the soon-to-be released Byron 1850. The 2022 release is packed in boxes of 25 cigars and each vitola will come in a dress box and a secondary box for the inaugural release. Future packaging for the line has not been finalized.
The blend uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper, Ecuadorian Connecticut binder, and Peruvian & Nicaraguan Ligero for filler. The cigars are rolled at Tabacos De Costa Rica. It comes in 6 vitolas: #1 4 x 50 $29.99, #2 5 x 52 $34.99, #3 6 x 54$39.99, #4 6 3/4 x 56 $44.99, #5 7 1/2 x 58 $49.99, and #6 9 x 50 $49.99. The cigars were rolled in 2017, and only 5,000 were rolled per size.
The depth of flavor on the Alfonso is incredible. A symphony of notes that left me feeling like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption listening to Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro.
Director of Operations for United Cigars, Oliver Nivaud