Score Big with These Top-Rated Medium-Full Strength Cigars for Football Season
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Time to read 5 min
Now that football action is in full swing, we’re ready for some sturdy cigars that will stand up to the stress of watching your team once again shit the bed after getting your hopes up. Or, alternatively, we’re in the market for some nice football cigars that you can smoke after a game gets out and you just want to go back to tailgating instead of sitting in 30 minutes of stadium traffic.
This list doesn’t really have too many pure full-strength cigars. These aren’t like linemen who’ve spent the last decade powerlifting and eating wings by the dozen. This list tends more toward medium-full blends that give you a really high-quality smoke while pulling no punches. These are all 90+ stogies, most hitting 94 or 93 points with Cigar Aficionado.
Think of these like the middle linebacker who’s fast, can hit hard, and always seems to be right where he needs to be.
Are you rea-dy for some footbaaaaaaaaall (cigars?)
Top-Rated Medium-Full-Strength Cigars for Football Season
Caldwell Long Live the Queen
This is an incredibly exotic smoke, full of tobacco from places that not everyone could point out on a map. The most familiar part is the Dominican and Nicaraguan long-filler blend. After that, there’s a true Indonesian binder and a Cameroon wrapper – both of which bring a flavor that many will find quite intriguing. The flavor profile winds up hitting just the right notes for a classic smoke: coffee, leather, and “sweet layers of almond, caramel, and chocolate.” The parts that will really make you fall in love are the long finish and the lush draw.
This is perfect when you’re full of pregame food and just want to smoke and digest. It’s flavorful and highly enjoyable – a great sort of dessert for those long gameday watch sessions.
Blackened Cigars “M81” by Drew Estate
It’s a Metallica cigar, folks. It fits right in with malicious thoughts and getting pumped to take to the football field.
If you remember back to the days of drinking beer in some dude’s basement while emptying a jean jacket pocket to find spilled shake weed, you probably remember the driving guitar riffs of Metallica’s “Blackened,” from the 1988 album And Justice for All. When it came time for famed cigar enjoyer and Metallica frontman James Hetfield to collaborate on making a cigar, this was the track he honored.
It's a fitting name, given how much dark fermented broadleaf tobacco made it into the blend. But that’s what happens when Drew Estate is involved. They really know how to put that All-American leaf to good use. The final mix features Nicaraguan filler with PA broadleaf, a CT broadleaf binder, and a Mexican wrapper. In the words of the Cigar Aficionado judge, it delivers “a rich, spicy smoke that lays a hearty foundation of coffee and earth accented by notes of ginger, licorice, and pepper before the semi-sweet chocolate finish.”
The flavors of Blackened cigars are potent and excellent with a variety of fall beers – it’s a great football cigar!
E.P. Carrillo Allegiance
The 94-point Allegiance is the most recent blend in E.P. Carrillo’s run of brilliant dominance at the top of the charts. It’s a more standard combination than some of the other cigars on this list: Nicaraguan filler with an Ecuador wrapper.
It brings plenty of flavor and strength, coming in around medium-full and packing notes that will keep you totally interested. Of course, you’d expect that from the two-time Cigar of the Year winner, right?
Cigar Aficionado described it by saying that it “shows layers of flavor with a sweet-and-spicy character accented by notes of nutmeg and cinnamon, all driven by a woody undercurrent.” Much like the Blackened blend, this smoke brings plenty of spice and would go great with fall beers and also any whiskey you might like to sip on while watching football.
**Special Message**
Let us take a moment of silence to mourn the hopes of Jets fans that went down the tubes 4 plays into the season when Aaron Rodgers was injured…
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**End Special Message**
Okay, back to cigars.
Crowned Heads Ozgener Bosphorus
Cano Ozgener was the founder of CAO cigars, which most folks are familiar with thanks to the success of the Flathead (itself one of the best football cigars out there, but it needs no more promoting at this point). Now, his family carries on the legacy with the help of the Crowned Heads team.
So far, the Bosphorous is the breakout blend to try.
It’s a well-made Nicaraguan/Ecuadorian combo blend that earned 93 points from Cigar Aficionado, who praised it as “spicy and bold from the start.” They said it had a “black pepper, licorice and leather quality” that was “complemented by pleasant notes of nuts and sweet herbs.” It all ends in a toffee finish that will have you kicking back in enjoyment in that folding chair at the tailgate no matter how bad of an underdog your team is.
Alec Bradley Black Market
This is such a tasty chart-topper! Having a five-pack of these is just the perfect thing to hand out around a firepit on a chilly game day.
The Alec Bradley Black Market blend brings together the tobaccos of a number of soils, including Honduras, Panama, Ecuador, and of course, Nicaragua. (You can’t go two feet in a tobacconist without running into some Nica leaf.)
The Number 6 cigar of 2022 does not disappoint when you want a football cigar that brings it on game day. Cigar Aficionado had this to say: “Accents of dried herbs and smoked hickory highlight the rich, nutty smoke, which saturates the palate with every puff.” Sound spicy? It is, like many other stories on this list. But it’s well-behaved. CA said that “Spice plays its appropriate part as well, occasionally bursting in the right places for a medium-to-full-bodied cigar that brings together the familiar with the exotic.”
This smoke earned 94 points! We just saw that the Dolphins nearly scored that many when they euthanized the Broncos on a Sunday not too long ago. Good God, what a beatdown.
Olmec Maduro
The Olmec Maduro has even got a dude in a helmet on the band! This Nicaraguan smoke has a Mexican wrapper and comes ready to play.
Olmec cigars are made by the Foundation team, who also made the fantastic El Gueguense blend. This one is quite possibly just as good. The judges at CA called it a “rich, earthy smoke wrapped around a prominent, nutty core of walnut.” But there’s just so much flavor going on. There are layers on layers. In particular, the 93-point review described how there were also “elements of leather, caramel, and a wisp of black pepper before a finish that hints of black licorice.”
Get a whiskey punch going and knock some strong stuff back along with this cigar. No matter which way your team goes, you’ll at least have SOME part of the day to enjoy.
Strongish football cigars. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
