Top 5 Affordable Alternatives to Fuente Fuente Opus X Cigars
It’s not easy to find Opus X cigars for sale. Legendary cigarmaker Carlito Fuente produces highly limited quantities of Opus X annually, which sell for some of the highest prices in the industry, thanks to steep aftermarket markups fueled by robust demand, scarce availability, and collectability.
Why Are Opus X Cigars So Hard to Find?
Most shops that list Fuente Fuente Opus X cigars for sale online are perpetually sold out. It’s common for store owners to set aside their Opus X allotment for regular customers. It’s also common to find Opus X cigars marked up significantly beyond their MSRPs. Fans of Opus X cigars tend to hoard them when they find a reliable source that sells them.
How Are Opus X Cigars Made?
Carlito Fuente has never been concerned with producing a large quantity of Opus X cigars. However, he insists Opus X cigars are the absolute best, reserving his finest and rarest Dominican tobaccos for them and relying on his most talented rollers to handcraft them. Carlito oversees a special rolling gallery at the Fuente factory exclusively dedicated to Opus X production. Select sizes, such as the coveted BBMF and Shark, are rolled by only one or two individuals, and the cigars they make are often reserved for limited-edition Fuente Fuente Opus X samplers.
How Much Do Opus X Cigars Cost?
Traditional sizes of Opus X cigars typically range from $40 to $100 per cigar, when purchased in full boxes or 5-packs at standard retail prices. But the same sizes can cost over a hundred dollars apiece in a high-end shop or cigar bar that maintains a regular supply. Rare and exotic sizes, like BBMF, Chili Pepper, Shark, and El Scorpion, can sell for hundreds of dollars per cigar. Depending on the quantity of cigars, full boxes range in price from $1,000 to several thousand dollars. Opus X samplers, like the Arturo Fuente ‘From Dream to Dynasty’ Collection, run into the thousands as well.
Are Opus X Cigars Worth the Cost?
Fuente Fuente Opus X is an authentic Dominican Puro, meaning all the tobacco sourced for the blend comes from a single country. Dominican Puros are rare because few cigarmakers grow wrapper crops there. Cigar lovers who enjoy Opus X understand why the cigars are expensive and know that few others compare. Opus X cigars layer the palate with complex, Cubanesque tasting notes and tangy, zesty spices. While it’s impossible to truly replicate the taste of Opus X, here are five affordable alternatives that you will appreciate.
1. Ashton ESG
Ashton ESG is the first alternative to Opus X cigars you should consider, as it shares more in common with Opus X than any other cigar in the world. Carlito Fuente has been blending the entire Ashton portfolio for over four decades. ESG stands for Estate Sun Grown, a reference to the blend’s Dominican cigar wrapper, which is also grown on the Chateau de la Fuente estates. Whereas the Opus X wrappers are grown under shade, Carlito blends ESG with a Sun Grown wrapper and vintage Dominican long-fillers, which are matured for optimal flavor and aroma. Luxurious notes of graham cracker, cedar, molasses, and black pepper weave a refined tapestry over the palate in a 94-rated classic ranked in the ‘Top 10 Cigars of the Year’ by the critics at Cigar Aficionado on numerous occasions. ESG cigars retail for around $26 to $31.
2. Arturo Fuente Añejo
Carlito Fuente created the Añejo brand in the aftermath of Hurricane Georges in 1998, when the storm destroyed several barns aging precious reserves of Opus X wrapper tobacco. The loss meant Carlito had to suspend Opus X production temporarily. However, he pivoted and re-blended the Dominican Ligero tobaccos reserved for Opus X cigars with a dark Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper that had been fermented in a cognac barrel, creating an illustrious new cigar called Añejo. Arturo Fuente Añejo cigars layer the palate with profound notes of anise, dark cocoa, molasses, and spice with hints of raisin. Carlito releases Añejo cigars in limited quantities a couple of times per year, traditionally before Father’s Day and the holidays. Choose from eight distinctive sizes, starting around $16 per cigar, and add Añejo to your collection.
3. La Aroma de Cuba Pasión
La Aroma de Cuba Pasión is another phenomenal Opus X alternative, thanks to its intricate, Cubanesque taste. Award-winning father-and-son cigarmakers Pepin and Jaime Garcia blend Pasión from an oily Cuban-seed wrapper, grown under shade in a special microclimate 18 miles east of Estelí in the Namanji region of Nicaragua. Premium Nicaraguan long-filler tobaccos cultivated on select Garcia estates complete the blend. Tasting notes of smoked cashew, leather, cedar, and molasses mingle with hints of spice throughout a classic, 94-rated masterpiece, handcrafted in six flawless sizes that start around $12 apiece.
4. My Father
The lauded My Father portfolio is home to dozens of today’s most distinguished cigars, with three ‘Cigar of the Year’ titleholders, including the 96-rated Flor de las Antillas, 97-rated Le Bijou 1922, and 98-rated The Judge. A pivotal cigar, not to be overlooked, however, is the original My Father blend. A hearty Cuban-seed wrapper, grown in Ecuador, conceals a magnificent recipe of vintage Nicaraguan long-filler tobaccos in six handcrafted sizes, starting just over $10 per cigar. Delectable notes of wood, spices, cinnamon, and leather unfold with hints of nutmeg and cedar throughout a balanced, full-bodied smoke, rated 94 points by the critics at Cigar Aficionado. When you’re craving an affordable and accessible profile that compares to Opus X, order the inaugural blend from the official launch of My Father cigars in 2008.
5. San Cristobal Quintessence
The critics in Cigar Aficionado rated San Cristobal Quintessence an impressive 95 points and ranked it as their ‘#3 Cigar of the Year’ for 2021. Six popular sizes blossom with notes of cedar, molasses, coffee bean, and cocoa, supported by an undercurrent of succulent spices. San Cristobal cigars are also blended and produced by Jose ‘Pepin’ Garcia in Nicaragua. An oily, reddish-brown Ecuador Habano wrapper leaf surrounds a robust blend of well-aged Nicaraguan long-filler tobaccos harvested on Garcia estates. This worthy Opus X substitute starts under $11 apiece, making it one of the best values on our list.
The Origins of Fuente Fuente Opus X Cigars to Today
Carlito created Opus X after being chided by a cigar retailer from Paris who declared that the Fuentes were assemblers of tobacco, rather than cigarmakers. To be a legitimate cigarmaker, according to the retailer, Carlito would have to grow his own wrapper leaf. The comment spurred Carlito’s determination to plant the finest wrapper crops on his burgeoning Dominican estate. Carlito Fuente and his father, Carlos Fuente Sr., cultivated a small 30-acre Dominican farm in the late 1980s and early 1990s specifically to grow wrapper crops—a feat that many other cigarmakers proclaimed impossible at the time.
Today, that small farm, christened Chateau de la Fuente, encompasses 300 acres and is the exclusive estate where the Fuente family grows their rarest and most prized tobacco, most of it reserved for Fuente Fuente Opus X cigars. It’s also home to an impressive compound, complete with guest quarters as well as a school and medical facilities that serve underprivileged families in the Dominican Republic’s Bonao region. Carlito created the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation (CFCF), a humanitarian organization dedicated to uplifting the community where his cigars have been made for over four decades. Much of the proceeds from Opus X cigars benefit the Fuentes’ foundation, vastly improving the fortunes of an impoverished community by providing access to clean drinking water, healthcare, and education.
