Aging Room
A Miami-based brand produced by Boutique Blends Cigars, founded by Rafael Nodal, known for meticulously aged tobacco and classical-music-themed vitola names.
Aging Room is the flagship brand of Boutique Blends Cigars, a Miami-area company founded in 1996 as Habana Cuba Cigar Company and refocused in 2002 by Rafael Nodal, his wife Alina Cordoves Nodal, and Hank Bischoff. The company took the Boutique Blends name in February 2012 and entered a strategic sales and distribution alliance with Altadis U.S.A. in 2017, with Nodal joining Altadis's executive team while Boutique Blends continued operating as its own entity.
Rather than owning a single factory, Aging Room blends are produced across several manufacturers depending on the line - including Nestor Plasencia's and Tabacalera A.J. Fernandez's Nicaraguan factories - a contract-manufacture model similar to other boutique brands on this site. The Quattro Nicaragua sub-line, the company's first all-Nicaraguan puro, was a direct collaboration between Nodal and A.J. Fernandez.
The brand is best known for extensively aged tobacco (the 'Aging Room' name) and for vitola names drawn from classical music and Cuban culture - Quattro Nicaragua's sizes are named Maestro, Vibrato, Concerto and Espressivo. Quattro Nicaragua Maestro was named Cigar Aficionado's Cigar of the Year for 2019.