Warped Cigars – IPCPR 2017

Coming off of a very successful 2016 year—including two (or three, depending on how you look at it) new products and an inclusion on nearly every year-end list (including Cigar Dojo’s #1 Cigar of the Year for 2016) for the brand’s Maestro del Tiempo blend—it was noticeably a more scaled-back approach at Warped Cigars’ IPCPR 2017 booth.

In terms of truly new products, there was only one, and the cigars were not actually on display. There was, however, cigar boxes on display that hinted at the design of the final product to come. The majority of the booth was focused on Warped’s most popular limited edition release—Black Honey—which saw a small re-release this spring.

In terms of the booth itself, Warped had a very similar feel to 2016’s display, only there seemed to be more attention to detail on the artwork around the booth (cartoon imagery of Gellis, as seen on the brand’s social media, as well as a neon light display in “BLACK HONEY” handwriting). The booth was again attached to Casa Fernandez, whom produces the majority of Warped’s cigars at their TABSA factory in Estelí.

Cigar Dojo awarded company owner Kyle Gellis with a custom-made, 2016 Cigar of the Year plaque for the brand’s winning blend—Maestro del Tiempo 5205.

Serie Gran Reserva 1988

Serie Gran Reserva 1988 was the only major release for Warped at this year’s show. Named for Kyle Gellis’ birth year, the cigars are made in the style of Warped’s Lirio Rojo blend, which uses tobaccos of very specific lots, farms, and primings to achieve a unique character unlike other Nicaraguan-made Warped cigars. Also similar to Lirio Rojo, the new Serie Gran Reserva 1988 will be more limited than typical Warped releases, estimated to make it to store shelves two to three times per year.

Kyle Gellis informed Cigar Dojo that the blend has been in the works for roughly twenty months, with extra time spent to find unique attributes from AGANORSA’s Corojo and Criollo tobaccos; resulting in an atypical, Juicy Fruit-like profile. Twelve blends were contenders for the final cigar, with the robusto being selected as the blend’s only vitola in the end. The cigars incorporate a more simplistic appearance than many other Warped blends, using wood-finish, slide-lid boxes of twenty-five cigars.

The estimated pricing is $10, with a release timeframe of December, 2017 or January, 2018.

Black Honey

Black Honey was originally released in a very small shipment of six-hundred cigars (60 bundles of 10 cigars) in 2015. The blend was revealed as a “hidden gem,” as brand owner Kyle Gellis found experimental cigars that featured the blend of Warped’s La Colmena with the wrapper of El Oso hidden and aging in the back of the aging room at El Titan de Bronze.

In spring of 2017, another small shipment of Black Honey found its way to select retailers. Now, using the very same 5″ × 48 belicoso format of the prior two releases, Warped has commissioned the same, belicoso-certified, category 9 master roller to craft a final batch of Black Honey cigars. The entire batch will be rolled by a single torcedor, with an undisclosed production size for the final shipment, slated for October, 2017.

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