Black Label Trading Company: Bishops Blend Novemdiales Toro 2023 Cigars

Bishops Blend from Black Label Trading Co. leans heavily into company founder James Brown's avant-garde, bordering-on-macabre aesthetic, making for a stick that's as striking visually as it is exquisitely flavored. A closed foot and pointed cap add further unique touches to go along with the photographic negative, Bishop's skull graphic along the band.

Since 2016, Black Label have released the Bishops blend annually, and each iteration of the cigar has comprised the same blend of Ecuadorian Habano Maduro wrapper, Ecuadorian Habano binder, and Connecticut, Nicaraguan, and Pennsylvania Broadleaf fillers. In 2023, however, Black Label introduced the Bishops Blend Novemdiales, a departure from the original by way of its Pennsylvania Broadleaf Maduro wrapper, though it maintains the same combination of binder and filler tobacco. The term "novemdiales" refers to a nine-day period of mourning observed by Catholics after the death of a pope, and it's been used here to distinguish this cigar, a special edition that additionally helps to commemorate Black Label's 10th anniversary as a company. A full-bodied cigar even more potent than the original release, the Bishops Blend Novemdiales offers notes of dark fruit, earth, and baking spices and is limited to 900 boxes of each size.