601 Reserva Limitada Maduro 20th Anniversary Review: Smoked at Espinosa HQ
Alex Gonzalez smoked the 601 Reserva Limitada Maduro 20th Anniversary on Day 1 of La Zona Palooza 2026, Espinosa Cigars’ festival in South Florida. It was one of the cigars we lit after dinner that Thursday, November 12, alongside a 601 Habano and an Espinosa Crema. This is Alex’s scored review of the anniversary maduro, taken from the scorecard he filled out that same day.
The cigar wears the familiar blue 601 Reserva Limitada Maduro band, with a second band that simply says “20th Anniversary.” Trade coverage of the limited edition, including halfwheel and Cigar Coop, lists it as the 601 Blue 20th Anniversary — a commemorative cigar built on Espinosa’s long-running 601 Blue Maduro line.
A 20-Year Milestone for 601
The original 601 line debuted in 2006, when Erik Espinosa and Eddie Ortega were still partners in the company then known as United Tobacco, later EO Brands. halfwheel and Cigar Coop both mark 2006 as the starting point, and halfwheel notes that the original blends were made by José “Pepín” García, then of El Rey de los Habanos. In a Cigar Aficionado interview, Espinosa has said the name itself was a practical choice: after an earlier brand ran into a trademark issue, he and Ortega “decided to come up with a number instead.”
When EO Brands dissolved, Espinosa moved 601 to Espinosa Premium Cigars, the company he launched in 2012. The regular 601 Blue Maduro, which Espinosa’s site calls “the jewel of the 601 Line,” uses a U.S. Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan filler.
This 20th anniversary edition stays in that family. According to halfwheel’s review, it uses a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper — the same varietal as the regular 601 Blue — over a Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan fillers, and it is made at A.J. Fernández’s San Lotano factory in Ocotal, Nicaragua. It is offered in a single size: a 6 3/4 x 56 parejo with an oval press. (Alex logged it on his scorecard as a 6.25 x 56 Toro Grande.) Espinosa announced the cigar ahead of the 2026 PCA Convention & Trade Show. halfwheel later listed a May 2026 release, an MSRP of $18 per cigar, or $180 for a box of 10, and production of at least 4,000 boxes of 10 (40,000 cigars), with the company open to making more.
We have written about Espinosa’s work before, including the Knuckle Sandwich collaboration with Guy Fieri. This review is about one cigar, smoked on one afternoon at the company’s own festival.
How We Score Cigars
Alex rates cigars on a 100-point scorecard, split into four categories:
- Flavor (25 points): taste, complexity, balance, strength, and how the flavor develops from the first third to the last.
- Smoking Performance (25 points): ease of draw, burn consistency and evenness, and whether the cigar stays lit.
- Appearance & Construction (15 points): wrapper quality, cap assembly, color consistency, fill, and ash retention.
- Overall Impression (35 points): overall harmony, personal enjoyment, and completeness of the experience.
The scores below are Alex’s, from November 12, 2026.
The Score
| Category | Score |
|---|---|
| Flavor | 22 / 25 |
| Smoking Performance | 23 / 25 |
| Appearance & Construction | 13 / 15 |
| Overall Impression | 33 / 35 |
| Total | 91 / 100 |
Tasting Notes
First third. Alex called the opening delicious. The prominent notes were spice, chocolate, a hint of sweetness, and white pepper. That’s a generous start — enough sweetness to show up, with white pepper and spice already sitting up front.
Second third. The sweetness died down a bit, while the white pepper stayed prominent and woody notes came in. The cigar didn’t fall off; it just shifted, with less of that early sweetness and more wood behind the pepper.
Final third. The last third went savory, woody, and spicy. Alex didn’t add a longer list of flavors, and he didn’t note anything falling apart. It finished in a drier, more savory place than it started, with wood and spice carrying it home.
Taken together, the scorecard shows a cigar that opened rich and a little sweet, then leaned into pepper, wood, and savory spice as it burned down. Alex gave flavor 22 out of 25 — a strong mark, just short of the top of the scale.
Draw, Burn, and Construction
This is where the cigar really impressed him. “Draw was almost perfect, the burn was perfect,” Alex wrote, along with “solid white ash with little blemishes, no flakiness.” That tracks with the 23 out of 25 for smoking performance and 13 out of 15 for appearance and construction. He didn’t note any touch-ups or burn corrections, and the ash in his photo is a firm, pale cylinder with only small marks on the surface.
The Verdict
A 91 is a high score on this card, and the 33 out of 35 for overall impression is the clearest tell: Alex enjoyed the complete experience. The flavor stayed in a tight family of spice, chocolate, sweetness, white pepper, wood, and savory notes, the draw was nearly perfect, and the burn and ash were as clean as you hope for on a cigar this size.
He also checked both of the yes/no boxes at the bottom of the scorecard: he would smoke it again, and he would buy it again.
That is about as clean a recommendation as the card allows, especially for a cigar smoked in the middle of a busy festival day.
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Sources: halfwheel: 601 Blue 20th Anniversary (June 30, 2026) · halfwheel: PCA 2026: Espinosa Premium Cigars (April 21, 2026) · Cigar Coop: 601 Blue 20th Anniversary Limited Edition (April 14, 2026) · Espinosa Cigars: 601 Blue Maduro · Cigar Aficionado: A Conversation With Erik Espinosa
