With 2024 being the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar, there are so many cigar companies producing limited edition “Dragon” inspired cigars this year that retailers’ humidors are beginning to feel a little like Westeros, the mythical land in George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” book series. Add Rocky Patel to the list of dragon tamers this year.
Rocky Patel’s Year of the Dragon is made in the company’s Esteli, Nicaragua-based factory from a blend of Mexican San Andres wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Honduran filler tobaccos. A “masterpiece in Rocky Patel’s cigarmaking history,” the Year of the Dragon is a medium- to full-bodied smoke that’s been aging for more than four years. Available in just the Toro vitola (6 ½ x 52), Rocky Patel Year of the Dragon cigars will begin shipping to retailers in April.
Where there are dragons, there’s usually a big pile of treasure, and while perhaps Rocky Patel didn’t necessarily plan it this way, cigar smokers might imagine the company’s second new cigar for 2024, Gold Label, as that dragon’s treasure horde.
Also made in Rocky Patel’s Nicaragua factory, Gold Label features an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, Connecticut Shade and Connecticut Broadleaf binders and a filler tobacco blend from Nicaragua.
Medium-bodied, Rocky Patel Gold Label is offered in four sizes: Half Corona (3 ½ x 46), Robusto (5 ½ x 50), Toro (6 1/2 x 54) and Sixty (6 x 60). Every cigar is wrapped in golden foil that extends from the foot to about halfway of the cigar’s length and every vitola comes in 20-count boxes. Rocky Patel Gold Label cigars will begin appearing in retail shops in May.
