Luxury Cigars: The Houses Worth the Price, and the Box We Would Buy From Each

Luxury cigars are not a price tag. They are a small group of houses that age tobacco for years before it is rolled, roll it by hand in small numbers, and present it in a way that makes opening the box part of the pleasure. We keep more of them in stock than almost anyone, starting with our El Septimo collection, which is the deepest you will find at any single shop. This guide walks through the seven houses we would put our own name behind, what each one tastes like, and the specific box we would buy if it were our money.

If you already know your strength and your budget and simply want a shortlist, the Cigar Finder gets you there in four questions. If you are new to this tier and wondering whether the jump is worth it, start with the next section.

What you are actually paying for in a luxury cigar

Four things, in roughly this order. Time: the tobacco in these cigars has usually rested for several years before rolling, and several of the houses below age the finished cigar again before it ships. Land: El Septimo grows its leaf on its own high-elevation farms in Costa Rica, and Atabey and Alfonso come from the same small country, which is why the wrappers in a box look the same from the first cigar to the last. Hands: a nine inch Salomon or a 70 ring Fabuloso cannot be rolled quickly, and the people who can roll one well are few. Presentation: acrylic and lacquered boxes, individual tubes, gold bands, art on the lid. None of that changes the smoke, but all of it changes the gift.

We wrote a plain-English price ladder in what you actually get for $20, $50, $100 and $500. The short version: past about $25 a stick, you stop paying for basics and start paying for age, scarcity and finish. Past $100, you are almost always paying for a limited release. Below, we name names.

The houses, one by one

El Septimo

Costa Rican, long aged, and the house we know best because we stock over 150 El Septimo listings, most of them by the box. What we taste across the range is a rich, sweet core, leather and dark licorice giving way to marzipan and salted caramel in the Kolosso Amethyst, and a more structured, layered smoke with a very long finish in the 20th Anniversary Doble Gran Reserva, the limited release that marks two decades of the house. The Empress Sheba is consistently among our best-selling El Septimo cigars, and with the Salvador Dalí Toro it is the one we suggest as a first box from the house. The box we would buy with our own money: the 20th Anniversary, box of 14, because it will not be made again.

Atabey

Made in Costa Rica by Selected Tobacco and aged at least five years after rolling in cedar-lined rooms before it is released. That ageing is the whole point. The Benditos, a 7 1/4 x 58, is the line's largest cigar and, to us, the most relaxed: sweet cedar, dark fruit, caramel and soft leather, with a creamy finish that never turns harsh even at the end. Medium in body, so it suits a long evening better than a fast one. Every Atabey size we carry comes in a box of 25, and the Benditos box is the one we would choose. The story behind the house is in our Atabey profile.

Alfonso

The mildest of the aged Costa Rican houses and, for that reason, the one we hand to people who think they do not like strong cigars but do like beautiful ones. Alfonso Extra Añejo rests five years on cedar and French oak, and you taste both woods: cedar, oak, cream, vanilla and toasted nut, with a gentle spice. The No. 4 Toro Grande, a 6 3/4 x 56, gives that blend the most room to open up. The Alfonso range also has a 4 x 50 Petit Robusto that is a lovely way to try the house without committing to the big format. Read more in our Alfonso profile.

Byron

A name from 1848 revived in Costa Rica, sold in two moods. The 20th Century series is the smooth, nutty side: roasted peanut, cocoa powder, cream and toasted wood, with the Mesolongis at 7.25 x 58 as its grand finale. The 19th Century series is fuller and fruitier, sweet cherry, cedar, fig and raisin, and the Petit Poemas at 4 x 50 puts all of that into forty minutes. Both come in boxes of 25. If you are buying a box today, the Petit Poemas box is in stock and is the one we would pick for someone who smokes in the afternoon. Our Byron profile covers the rest.

Davidoff and Zino Platinum

The Swiss house needs no introduction, so we will only say which ones we reach for. The Winston Churchill Late Hour Petit Panetela is full, dark and built for the end of the night: oak, leather, black coffee and dark chocolate, with a sweetness that comes from a Nicaraguan leaf rested in single malt whisky casks. It comes in a tin of five, which makes it one of the easiest luxury gifts we sell. Zino Platinum is Davidoff's bolder, modern line, and the Crown Series Barrel Gran Toro, a 6 x 60 in an individual aluminium tube, tastes of cedar, mixed pepper and chocolate. We would buy the box of 10 Zino tubes for a golf bag or a boat, because the tubes travel. Our Davidoff collection has everything currently in stock from the white band, and Zino has its own page.

Cohiba

The Cohiba we sell is the American brand, made outside Cuba, and its top end belongs on this list. Cohiba Black, made with tobaccos aged at least three years under a dark Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, is an espresso of a cigar: espresso, dark chocolate, earth and toasted cedar. The Black Gigante, a 6 x 60 in an aluminium tube, is the size we would give to someone who likes their cigars full and their evenings long. It comes in a box of 20. The rest of our Cohiba range, including the Red Dot Churchill in a box of 25, sits a step below in strength and price.

The box we would buy from each house

Prices and stock below are live. Where a box exists we link the box, because that is how these cigars are meant to be kept.

Luxury cigars by price band, per stick and per box

Most people arrive at this tier with a number in mind, so here is how the houses above line up against one. Every figure is the live price on our site today.

Price band	Cigar	Body	Single	Box
$25 to $50 a stick	El Septimo Salvador Dalí Toro	Medium	$24.00	Box of 20, $425.00
	Byron Petit Poemas 19th Century	Medium to medium-full	$28.00	Box of 25, $700.50
	Cohiba Black Gigante	Full	$31.00	Box of 20, $563.50
	Atabey Benditos	Medium	$46.00	Box of 25, $1,152.00
$50 to $100 a stick	Zino Platinum Crown Series Barrel	Medium to full	$48.00	Box of 10, $481.50
	Alfonso Extra Añejo No. 4 Toro Grande	Mild to medium	$52.50	Box of 25, $1,306.50
	El Septimo Fabuloso Dark Ruby	Medium to full	$95.00	Box of 10, $900.00
$100 and up	El Septimo Kolosso Amethyst	Medium to full	$104.50	Box of 10, $990.00
	El Septimo 20th Anniversary Doble Gran Reserva	Medium to full	$119.00	Box of 14, $1,575.00

Two things worth knowing about the top of that table. First, the El Septimo limited releases are what people mean when they ask us about the most expensive cigars in the shop, and every one of them is sold by the box as well as by the stick. Second, the acrylic boxes those cigars come in are genuinely part of the purchase: they seal, they display, and they get kept. If you want the full breadth of what the house makes at that level, the El Septimo limited edition collection is where the rarest boxes live.

What belongs next to them

A cigar at this level deserves a lighter that does not scorch it and a cutter that does not crush it. On a still evening indoors, nothing lights a Salomon like the soft flame of the El Septimo x S.T. Dupont Napoleon Ping, and the sound it makes when it opens is half the reason people buy it. Outdoors, or for anyone who simply prefers a torch, El Septimo's own Emperor Napoleon triple torch matches the art on the boxes. For the cut, a Brizard V cutter in black ostrich is the piece we would put in the pocket next to them; a V cut sits well on the wide formats above. And if the box is going to live somewhere for a while, a Maccarrone humidor is the only case where the furniture is as considered as the cigars. We compared the lighters and cutters in detail in our luxury cutter and lighter guide.

Two more cigars from the list above, and the four pieces we would keep beside them.

Giving a box as a gift

Buy the box, not the stick. A single cigar, however fine, disappears in an evening; a box of 10 or 14 is a shelf in his humidor for months, and every time he opens it he remembers who sent it. If you do not know his strength, choose medium: the Atabey Benditos, the Byron Mesolongis and the El Septimo Salvador Dalí are all safe in the sense that matters, which is that nobody puts them down halfway. If you know he likes them full, the Kolosso Amethyst or the Davidoff Late Hour tin. If he is the kind of man who already has everything, the 20th Anniversary is the box he does not have.

We can engrave and present most of what is on this page; the options are on our customization page. For the wider gift question, our luxury gifts for cigar lovers guide covers humidors, cases and sets by budget, and the closing gift guide handles the client who can buy anything himself.

The short version

Seven houses make luxury cigars worth the money, and we stock all of them by the box. El Septimo for depth and presentation, Atabey and Alfonso for years of ageing, Byron for two moods of the same craft, Davidoff and Zino Platinum for the Swiss standard, and Cohiba Black for the full-bodied end of the evening. Pick the body you like, buy the box, and let it rest a week before the first one.