LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition

This year, for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday, he hosted a UFC event on the White House lawn. It was one of the more spectacular birthday celebrations for a sitting president, even besting the parade he ordered for his 79th birthday.

However, it’s certainly not the most famous moment of a sitting president’s birthday.

In 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at a party celebrating the 45th birthday of President John F. Kennedy. The event was held at Madison Square Garden and was Monroe’s last major public event before her death.

LeRoy Neiman, the famed American painter, turned the moment into a poster that depicted the event, cake and all. A print was even featured on the television show “Pawn Stars.”

For the last four years, J.C. Newman has partnered with the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation to create a cigar that uses a specific Neiman work for its packaging. This year, “The President’s Birthday Party” is the work.

Most of the details regarding the cigar release are the same as the three previous cigars: outside of the painting choice, the packaging is more or less the same; the blend of the cigars is the same, but there’s a different vitola for 2026; J.C. Newman and the Foundation continue to donate their proceeds from the release to fund art education in Tampa public schools.

As for the cigar, this year’s version is a 6 1/2 x 56 toro extra. One notable addition to the packaging for 2026 is the America250 band. Throughout 2026, J.C. Newman will include this band on all handmade cigars rolled at its El Reloj factory in Tampa, following its selection as the official cigar of America250.

Each box comes with an authentic lithograph of “The President’s Birthday Party.” In addition, one of the bands of each cigar is a print of the painting.

“‘The President’s Birthday’ is one of LeRoy’s most luminous works—a painting that captures a singular, electric moment when art, celebrity, and American history converged in one room,” said Tara Zabor, executive director of the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, in a press release in April. “LeRoy had an extraordinary gift for being present at the defining moments of our history and translating them onto canvas with an energy that made you feel like you were standing right there beside him. He was fiercely proud of being an American, and his body of work is essentially a chronicle of America at its most iconic—its champions, its cultural giants, its greatest celebrations. His brushwork was a love letter to American life in all its vibrancy and spectacle. With this collaboration, we are honored to see ‘The President’s Birthday’ take on new life and reach new audiences.”

As with previous releases, the bottom of the box is designed to look like the paint-stained floor of Neiman’s Manhattan studio.

• Cigar Reviewed: LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition
• Country of Origin: U.S.A.
• Factory: El Reloj
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Habano Rosado)
• Binder: U.S.A. (Florida Sun Grown)
• Filler: Undisclosed
• Length: 6 1/2 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 56
• Shape: Round
• MSRP: $24 (Box of 20, $480)
• Release Date: May 2026
• Number of Cigars Released: 750 Boxes of 20 Cigars (15,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

Upon seeing the cigars, my first thought is that I think the cigar needs more bands. Surely four is not enough. Unfortunately, my next thought is more serious than that: the cigars are concerningly firm. One of the cigars appears to have the texture of a Lincoln Log, though the other two aren’t any better as it feels the cigars are overfilled and have multiple hard spots throughout. With some of the paper removed, the wrapper’s dark milk chocolate color becomes apparent. While most of the veins look fine, there are at least a few that appear stitched on with some lighter discoloration surrounding them. The aromas are quite similar, with scents of freshly rained-on soil over some wood polish and chalk, around medium-full and smelling a bit like a well-preserved old building. The feet smell more intense but pretty similar, adding a smell that reminds me of fertilizer to the aroma from the wrapper. Cold draws of the first two cigars are similar, with nuttiness slightly edging out leather, white pepper, woodiness, chocolate pudding and some underlying sweetness, medium-full for the first cigar and medium for the third. The second cigar is also medium-full but has this weird mixture of bread, paprika and a creaminess that gets quite close to a sharp cheese flavor, also medium-full.

The LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition begins with flavors that take me back to the first time trying this blend: an underlying sweetness accents a very balanced mixture of woods, earth, bread, and mild pepper. It’s so smooth and balanced to the point that it’s difficult to figure out which flavors are more intense. Unfortunately, the draws on the first and third cigars are quite tight, and it doesn’t take too long for the second cigar to join them. Outside of that, not much changes, which leaves me happy with how the cigars taste but frustrated by how difficult they are to smoke. The core is a mixture of woods, nuttiness, earth, leather and creaminess, with the underlying sweetness and an occasional burst of pepper. During the finish, some of the flavors drop off, which allows the creaminess to emerge as slightly stronger than the woodiness, while also adding some sweet pastry flavors, some coffee bean and a touch of toasty sharpness. Retrohaling keeps most of the same flavors as what I taste in the mouth, but with more detail: the earth gets more of a rock flavor, the sweetness tastes floral, the woodiness is less sweet and more damp. Oddly, the flavors intensify during the finish, with some added raisin, meatiness and a few more spices. Flavor is full but very smooth, body is medium-full and strength is medium-plus. All three cigars have draws that are solidly tight, though not plugged. At times, the burn line gets uneven but it’s only a problem on the second cigar, when my attempts to rotate the cigar in the ashtray don’t fix the problem and the lighter has to come back out.

Whether it’s because the draw is slowly getting better or just the natural progression, the LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition really hits its stride in the second third. In the first third, I found that the very balanced profile’s flavors were spatially quite separate, so much so that outside of the sweetness, they didn’t really combine in a way to make the sum better than the parts. By the midpoint, the gaps have closed, and it has increased both the richness and the detail. The core flavors remain mostly the same—woods, nuttiness, earth, creaminess, all with the underlying sweetness—but I find the flavors to have more layers. In between, there’s some added green pepper, bread and dry herbs. The creaminess really shines during the finish, closing any gaps between the existing flavors while also bringing out more terroir, dry herbs and even some mustard powder. Retrohaling is remarkably consistent thanks to a leading mixture of nuttiness popcorn with mineral terroir, dry pasta, leather, straw and salt underneath. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength is medium or medium-plus. The draws on the first two cigars have loosened up slightly, not enough to avoid point deductions, but making steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, the third cigar’s draw hasn’t loosened. Again, the second cigar’s burn gets quite uneven and needs correction.

A bit more than half of the core flavor of the second third sticks around for the final section. That includes nuttiness, a much more bitter wood flavor, and some terroir. There are new flavors such as blackberry sweetness, rye whiskey, and a dry leather; but compared to the middle section, I find fewer flavors and a less enjoyable profile. The leather and white pepper carry the transition, eventually joined by saltiness, toastiness and an even drier wood flavor. Retrohales have earthiness, leather and black pepper, but again, things taste a lot drier than they did before. As the finish builds, the earth transitions to more of a rocky mineral flavor, and there’s some butter-like creaminess at the very end. Flavor is full, body is medium-full or full, and strength is medium-plus. The third cigar’s draw doesn’t improve, though the other two cigars are decent enough in the closing section. While there’s at least a small amount of room for construction improvement, my larger frustration with each cigar is the flavor.

Final Notes

• Given that draw issues are more difficult to categorize than burn issues, my approach is that if a poor draw doesn’t seem to be negatively impacting the burn or flavor, to not deduct points. If the draw is causing an issue to one of those categories, then a draw-specific deduction happens. In this case, the draw was bad enough that I thought it was noticeably impacting the flavor profile and might have been contributing to the uneven burns.
• Unlike some other recent reviews with tight draws, the burn issues for each cigar were oddly related to uneven burns and not poor smoke production.
• After Brooks selected the cigars for this review—pulling three random ones from the bottom row of the box—I was curious if the entire box felt overfilled. I didn’t thoroughly inspect all of them, but every cigar I picked up felt overfilled.
• The packaging for this release continues to be some of the most special in the cigar industry. The inaugural version finished #2 on our 2022 Packaging Top 10. Given how we do things, it won’t get considered for another packaging award because if we allowed repeat entries like this, it would probably make the list every year.

• This is what the back of three of the bands look like. Two of them have the same text as last year’s release, though the large band has new text to reflect the new artwork. There’s no text on the back of the America 250 band.
• When these cigars were announced, J.C. Newman announced that the company and foundation had raised $117,000 for Tampa public schools.
• If you are visiting Dallas and are curious about seeing a JFK exhibit, The Sixth Floor Museum—located in the building where Lee Harvey Oswald was when he shot Kennedy—is a decent way to spend an hour or so. Just be very careful about eating anywhere nearby. In the immediate area is a restaurant group that targets tourists and bribes them for positive Google reviews. This includes what D Magazine declared the worst barbecue in North Texas. Personally, I’d walk a few more blocks east to Partenope, some of the city’s best pizza, or further to the Farmer’s Market, where you can find Pecan Lodge, actually good barbecue, or Ka-Tip, great Thai food.
• J.C. Newman advertises on halfwheel.
• The cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.

• J.C. Newman lists the LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition as a 6 1/2 x 56 double toro. Above are the dimensions I found for the three cigars smoked for this review.
• Final smoking time varies between two hours and 30 minutes and two hours and 50 minutes. I have no doubt that my slow smoking times were impacted by the tight draws.
• Site sponsors Corona Cigar Co. and Small Batch Cigar carry the LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition.

El Reloj
J.C. Newman
LeRoy Neiman 2026 Collector’s Edition
LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation
LeRoy Neiman Collector’s Edition
U.S.A.