For the last few years, Drew Estate released a Freestyle Pack with a swag and a few mystery cigars. Then a few weeks later, they reveal the cigar. Last year, it was the collaboration with Metallica, Blackened. This year the cigars turned out to be the Liga Privada H99 Papas Fritas.

The Papas Fritas is a mixed filler cigar Liga Privada that uses the tobacco trimmings that are created when making longfiller cigars. Drew Estate takes those trimmings and uses them in the filler, while applying a longfiller binder and wrapper.

The 4½x 44 cigars are made with H99 blend, highlighted by a corojo-seed wrapper grown in the Connecticut River Valley. H99 was introduced in 2018 in a single 6 x 52 size but with the Papas Fritas the line grew to 4 vitolas. None of them are officially available for international markets. The H99 blend uses a  Connecticut corojo wrapper over a Mexican San Andrés and fillers from Honduras, Nicaragua and Pennsylvania, the latter of which is the infamous Green River One Sucker, known for its strength and potent flavour.

“It’s a flavour bomb,” said Willy Herrera, Drew Estate’s master blender. “It’s yet another expression of the Papas Fritas family, but this time with the coveted corojo hybrid wrapper that’s on the H99.” To have enough tobacco for the H99 Papas Fritas, Drew Estate has been saving trimmings for a long time and increased production on the other H99 vitolas.