OZ Family Cigars’ The Cigar Game Cigar Returns for 2025

As the 2025 college football season formally kicks off this week, retailers in Tennessee have already taken delivery of a cigar created for one of the sport’s most storied rivalries. One known as The Third Saturday in October and a game that has a long history with cigars.

That weekend is when the annual game between the University of Alabama and the University of Tennessee is played. After each game, the winning team lights up a victory cigar, and then self-reports a violation ot the NCAA.

Last year, OZ Family Cigars—which is based in Nashville—created a cigar for the game, the Firsat The Cigar Game. It’s returned for 2025 with most of the details the same. Like last year, the cigar is a 6 x 56 box-pressed version of the Firsat blend, which uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut-seed wrapper over an Ecuadorian habano and fillers from Nicaragua. It is made at Casa Carrillo in the Dominican Republic.

Each cigar has an MSRP of $14.95, the same price as last year.

The one major change is that production has quadrupled from 300 boxes to 1,200 boxes of 12 cigars. OZ Family Cigars shipped half the boxes to stores earlier this month, another 400 boxes will go out this week, and the remaining 200 boxes will head out as the game nears.

Each cigar wears the regular Firsat band, but it also has a large sleeve that features the orange and white checkerboard pattern that is used by Tennessee in the endzones of Neyland Stadium. Unlike the various collegiate cigars from Bocock Brothers, this cigar is not an officially licensed University of Tennessee product.

This year’s game will take place Saturday, Oct. 18, at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.