The Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Roasted Poblano Stratocaster serves up a heaping helping of warmly roasted rock ‘n’ roll tone. Fender built deep flavor into this limited-edition Strat —first, by roasting its carefully selected alder body to draw out moisture and sugars for a lighter, more stable bodywood, with improved sustain and resonance. Then, Bam! — Fender broke the Scoville scale, packing the Roasted Poblano Strat with piquant hand-wound Ancho Poblano single-coil pickups, dressed in secret Custom Shop sauce for scorching tones in every position. All great chefs knows we eat with our eyes. And, the Roasted Poblano Strat is a visual feast, featuring a lustrous nitrocellulose aged olympic white that accentuates the roasted alder’s golden hue, and custom relic hardware for a lived-in appearance that matches the guitar’s yesteryear vibe. Guitarists at Music Experience have a taste for the hot stuff, and the Custom Shop Limited Edition Roasted Poblano Stratocaster delivers the heat with a blistering sound and searing good looks.

Hand-wound Ancho Poblano pickups pack a punch

The kick in this Stratocaster electric guitar comes from the hand-wound Ancho Poblano pickups. These Custom Shop designs are specially engineered to offer you spicy expressive tones that get progressively hotter from neck to bridge pickup. The middle and neck pickups are tweaked across the strings to enhance your solo work, while the flat-pole bridge pickup is fashioned for punch, making your guitar work your amp hard. And Fender has curbed these spicy pickups' microphonics and preserved their open-yet-focused tone by potting them in their own "secret Custom Shop sauce.".

Vintage appointments for a broken-in look and feel

While the voice of this Strat is more aggressive than some designs, the feel of the guitar is based firmly on a great vintage platform. A riftsawn roasted maple 1959 Strat neck with a Large "C" profile has the comfortable feel of some of the most sought-after necks of the 1950s and 1960s. You also get the tone and control that can only be achieved with Fender's American Vintage synchronized tremolo with bent-steel string saddles. Even with its big, bold personality the Ancho Poblano Strat oozes Fender purity of design in every way.

Relic finish and hardware with vintage vibe

As you can imagine, a true '60s Strat would show signs of wear and tear, and the Roasted Poblano Stratocaster Relic is finished to represent those years of playing. Fender's aging artisans start with a period-correct nitrocellulose lacquer finish, and then expertly distress it to achieve a vibe indistinguishable from an actual vintage guitar. And while the relic look will appeal to Fender fans and collectors, the Roasted Poblano Stratocaster Relic has tone and playability any discerning player will respect.

What Fender Says...

An evolution of the original Ancho Poblano recipe—a trio of spicy hand-wound Ancho Poblano single-coil Strat pickups, fat neck and Vintage Modified #2 wiring— the Limited Edition Roasted Ancho Poblano Strat Relic turns the heat up to 11. It’s been said the neck has the most effect on a guitar’s tone after the pickups; a fat neck equals fat tone. We took that to heart when crafting the Limited Edition Roasted Ancho Poblano Strat Relic—giving it a fat “’59 C”-shaped profile and roasted the riftsawn maple neck. Roasting the wood gives it delicious resonance by removing moisture, while also darkening it for a sumptuous aesthetic. Only the artisans at the Dream Factory could have come up with this combination of ingredients and made them so delectable. The roasted alder body wears a Relic lacquer finish that lets the body “breathe” with enhanced tonal resonance while giving this Strat the look and feel of a well-loved, often-played companion. The 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard hosts 21 jumbo frets for a satisfyingly comfortable feel that hits the spot in an inspiring way. Other features include RWRP middle pickup, 5-way switching, vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge and tuning machines, 3-ply Black pickguard, bone nut and wing string tree with spacer.