It’s an auspicious achievement for any company to reach its 10-year anniversary — much less a cigar company, where today’s hot smoke can be tomorrow’s clearance-sale item.

If you’re Rocky Patel or Camacho Cigars, two boutique lines, the secret to longevity seems to be an utterly predictable combination of hard work and attention to detail — both in levels that would have companies less sturdy weeping and begging for mercy.

“Against All Odds,” reads the motto on the box of Rocky Patel Decade cigars — a fist-in-the-air celebration of Rocky Patel’s hard work. The Decade’s wrapper is long-fermented Ecuador Sumatra, while the tobaccos in the binder and mostly-liger filler are a closely held secret. “It’s rich and complex, yet very well-balanced,” Patel offers. “I like a cigar that’s got a lot of character.”

Despite years on the road, the 45-year-old Patel maintains the same die-hard enthusiasm that led him to first start blending cigars in the basement of his L.A. home. The Decade is “the cigar that I’m most proud of,” he says. “It reflects my taste profile, the company, and the type of product we seek to make.”

On a similar note, March sees Camacho Cigar’s release of a 10th Anniversary cigar that “celebrates the Eiroa Families’ 10 years of growing the world’s only authentic Corojo tobacco.” This medium-to-full bodied stick is Corojo (tobacco originally grown in Cuba’s famous Vuelta Abajo region) from wrapper to filler and has been designed as a follow-up to the company’s Triple Maduro. And as with Rocky Patel’s smokes, it’s yet another sign that good things indeed come to those who endure.

rockypatel.com

camachocigars.com

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