Drew Estate announces the Blackened Cigars M81, a collaboration of Drew Estate President Jonathan Drew, Metalica co-founder James Hetfield and Rob Dietrich, the Master Distiller and Blender of Blackened American Whiskey.
The project began with Hetfield and Dietrich, who frequently enjoy cigars together.
“It is really a fun social thing for me, a fellowship, to have a few buddies sit around with a few sticks,” Hetfield said in a press release. “Dietrich…introduced me to Jonathan from Drew Estate. The three of us connected and shared each other’s vision and story about where we’ve been, what we like to see and what is important to us now, and we all came up with what a Blackened M81 cigar would look and taste like. I love the Maduro leaf and I’m super excited for everyone to try this.”
To arrive at the blend, samples from the Drew Estate portfolio were sent to Hetfield and Dietrich, who kept cigar journals to critique the cigars and identify what they liked and disliked about each one. After two years of sampling cigars together, the group decided on the profile that became Blackened Cigars M81.
The M81 features a Maduro wrapper with Connecticut River Valley Broadleaf Maduro binder and a filler blend of Nicaraguan and Pennsylvania Broadleaf Maduro tobaccos. It comes in copper-accented 20-count boxes in four sizes: the 5 x 43 Corona ($9.15), a 5 x 50 Robusto ($9.45), a 6 x 52 Toro ($9.85) and a 7 x 50 Corona Doble ($10.35).
It is available exclusively to Drew Diplomat participants.
In an Instagram post last week, Dietrich said the new cigar “is a passion project of creativity and fellowship, based on the camaraderie of artistry and mutual enjoyment of smoking an epic cigar.”
