From the Drew Estate site: Meticulously blended over a period of two years to be a worthy humidor companion to our much heralded Liga Privada No. 9 recipe. With notes of black pepper and spice, it is our choice when desiring a stronger, more robust smoke. Like its predecessor, it is a complex marriage of seven distinct aged tobaccos handcrafted by only our absolute best torcedors. Each cigar is guaranteed to be flawless in construction, flavor and character…without exception.

The Liga Privada T52 story is about leaf, and the pursuit across continents to find it. Add in two gambling spirits willing to roll the dice & wait, patiently, for the magic to be revealed.

JD Speaks…

“On a regular trip up to Connecticut for the purposes of purchasing a barn of Connecticut Broadleaf, we stumbled upon a farm that was growing a very unique looking “Stalk Cut Tobacco” in addition to the Broadleaf. The farmer called the wrapper leaf “American Habano.” After a few hours of inspection, we were impressed, but we tried to keep our composure, as this beautiful leaf had the exact color and thickness qualities that we had been flying all over the damn world looking for. Lucky for us, (and for you too!) the farmer was complaining that this experimental tobacco would be the last year of crop unless he found a buyer who was willing to look past this one crop and make a real committment. He said that others had loved the tobacco, but they didn’t want to pay the high price which is required to grow it the right way. Needless to say, we spent a pretty penny, but damn it is worth it. All this, just for the wrapper leaf! Wait ‘til you get the story on what’s inside….

This was a blend that was in a holding pattern for a very long time, as we were working with a new stalk-cut capa since September of 2006. To be blunt, this leaf is a pain in the ass and I thought we might have pissed away $400k on it. Luckily, we didn’t and the result is phenomenal in my opinion. Anyhow, there were seven base iterations of the T52 blend. As fate would have it, #3 and #4 again turned out to be the best, even though the T52 #3/#4 differ from the Liga Privada No. 9 #3/#4 – and again the #4 was the stronger of the lot. For months, I was sold on the #3, then the #4, then #3, and so on – we even put the #4 into real production, to change our minds yet again – in the end, the final blend is actually between the two… so #3.5 is the official Liga Privada T52 blend. Ya got all that!”