Tasting Note

Can a single cigar be worth $100? Several cigars have reached (or exceeded) this price point in recent years as cigars grow increasingly expensive. But a high price tag is not a guarantor of high quality. In the case of the Rocky Patel Conviction Toro, however, the extreme price is paired with an extremely delicious smoke. Conviction sells for $100 per cigar, and it’s the most expensive cigar Patel has ever made. Why is the price so dear? Patel made the cigar with tobacco grown in Nicaragua in 2014, the first year he grew tobacco in that country. The cigar is all Nicaraguan on the inside, with a dark, Mexican San Andrés wrapper on the outside. We taste cigars blind at Cigar Aficionado, which means when we rate them, we don’t know what country they are from, who made the cigar or how much it costs. We found the Conviction brilliant, a medium-to-full-bodied cigar that’s a superb performer, delivering an opulent core of cocoa powder and dark chocolate flavor. And it’s a cigar that builds in flavor, getting better and better the longer it is smoked.