Red Meat Lovers Fritanga (6 x 52)

Video review HERE.

(Description taken from Halfwheel.com website)

The newest size in Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust’s Red Meat Lovers line is on its way to stores. It’s a 6 x 52 box-pressed toro called Fritanga, named for a style of Nicaraguan street food centered around grilling meat on an open flame.

Pricing is set at $16.25 per cigar and $162.50 for a box of 10 cigars.

The Red Meat Lovers line, which debuted in 2019, was created to be paired with beef dishes and was released as a collaboration between Smoke Inn, Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust and the Red Meat Lovers Club, an organization that gathers for meat-centric events with a charitable aim.

It has a blend that uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés negro binder, and fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania. Steve Saka, founder and blender of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust, calls this newest size a spicier and beefier iteration of the Red Meat Lovers blend, which is produced at Nicaragua American Cigars S.A.

The Fritanga is a regular production size and joins the other three sizes in the line:

Red Meat Lovers Beef Stick (6 x 48)

Red Meat Lovers Filet Mignon (5 x 54)

Red Meat Lovers Ribeye (6 x 52)

Red Meat Lovers Porterhouse (6 x 60)

The Fritanga size made its first appearance at the Red Meat Lovers dinner on March 14, 2025, which is part of The Great Smoke, an event put on by Smoke Inn, a retailer with multiple locations in South Florida.

The cigar is very dark and well made. It has a nice feel in the hand.

The test draw after cutting the cap was a little firm but workable. The initial flavors at light up were a citrus/pear, brown sugar, tanned leather, and black coffee. There was black pepper rated at 7. Pretty good start.

At the first third (23 minutes) the ash was still intact and firm. The main flavor now is pear; somewhat of an unripened pear with a touch of bitterness, nice brown sugar, subdued tanned leather, and elevated black coffee. The cigar is medium bodied. The finish is pear with underlying black coffee and very good lingering black pepper. I rated the first third 94.

As I moved through the second third (47 minutes) the black coffee rose quite a bit along with some of the bitterness. There are still pear notes, decreased brown sugar, no tanned leather, and a lot of black coffee. The cigar is medium to full bodied. The finish is black coffee with very good lingering black pepper. I rated the second third 92.

The cigar lasted 1 hour 19 minutes. There was a nice increase in brown sugar. There are nice pear notes, brown sugar, and black coffee. The black coffee is still elevated. The cigar is medium to full bodied. The finish is pear, brown sugar, and black coffee with very good lingering black pepper. I rated the final third 93. This cigar gets a little heavy on black coffee after the first third. 

Overall Score: 93