Room101 has started shipping its 17th Anniversary, and there wasn't a 16th. This year's release is a 6 x 52 Nicaraguan puro built with A.J. Fernandez, who grew every leaf of the tobacco on his own farms.
It runs $15.89 a cigar in purple 20-count boxes, and production stopped at 2,500 boxes, which comes to 50,000 cigars. Fernandez blended it with Matt Booth and rolled it at his factory in Estelí, Nicaragua. It reached retailers on August 3, 2026.
- Nicaraguan puro by A.J. Fernandez, 6 x 52 toro, one size only.
- $15.89 a cigar, purple boxes of 20, $317.80 a box.
- 2,500 boxes, 50,000 cigars, shipped August 3.
The anniversary series goes back to 2009, and it never repeats itself. Here's this year's.
THE BLEND
It's a Nicaraguan puro, which means every leaf in it comes from Nicaragua. Wrapper, binder and filler, all one country.
Room101 hasn't published anything past that, so there's no priming, no farm and no split between growing regions on the record. What the company does say is that A.J. Fernandez grew all of the tobacco on his own land, then blended the cigar with Matt Booth.
That part's worth a beat. Plenty of collaborations just buy the leaf on the open market, this one was grown by the guy who blended it.
THERE WAS NO 16TH
Booth started Room101 in 2009 and brought it back in 2017, and somewhere in there the anniversary cigar became a yearly thing. Yearly, mostly.
The 15th arrived in February 2025, later than planned, and the 16th never arrived at all. Room101 hasn't given a public reason for skipping it, and I'm not going to invent one.
Scandinavian Tobacco Group bought Room101 in 2022, which is why you'll see some of these announcements carry the General Cigar name. Same house.
THE SIZE AND THE RUN
There's one size, a 6 x 52 toro, which is about as middle-of-the-road as a toro gets. Figure an hour and change if you're not rushing it.
Boxes hold 20 at $15.89 each, so a full box runs $317.80, and the run stopped at 2,500 boxes, or 50,000 cigars.
The boxes are purple, which is on brand for Room101 and easy enough to pick out on a shelf.
"Every Anniversary cigar is a snapshot of where we are at that moment. They aren't meant to repeat themselves because neither do we."MATT BOOTH, FOUNDER OF ROOM101
THE BLC TAKE
I don't find $15.89 unreasonable for a limited anniversary cigar. It's not the cheapest and it's not the most expensive, and I feel confident that Room101 always puts out a quality product.
They put out 50,000 cigars, so it's not the smallest run either. Nobody has to panic and run to their local tobacconist to get one. I think they'll be on the shelves for a while.
What I am curious about is the skip year. If I get the chance to talk to Matt Booth, I'm going to ask him what happened there. A brand puts out an anniversary cigar every year and then misses one. What's the reason? What's the story? I'd like to find out.
ROOM101 17TH ANNIVERSARY, SPECS
Every specification on this page is as published by Room101. Blind Label Cigar hasn't smoked the 17th Anniversary and doesn't score cigars it hasn't smoked.
