blessednxs65
Is it Nicaraguan
Los Angeles "If you will try a 1495, you will pick up on what complexity is."
Thats the advice of La Aurora factorys energetic marketing director Jose Blanco, in an interview last week during the middle day of the well-organized first ProCigar Festival in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
"For me," he said, "a one-dimensional cigar is boring. The Aurora 1495 opened us up to complexity because of its six different leaves: wrapper from Ecuador, binder of Dominican Corojo and filler from Nicaragua, Peru, Piloto Cubano from the Dominican Republic and Dominican Corojo. "Its complex to start off and continues, and as you smoke it, you pick up hints of coffee, cocoa and other flavors. It isnt those flavors, of course, but you get a hint that your taste tells you is like something else it knows."
Executives at several Dominican factories agreed that todays cigar smoker is perhaps the best informed in the history of smoking and that the quality of leaf available today and the willingness of factories to work carefully through the process of manufacture makes this a "golden age" for cigars, especially for smokers in the U.S., who have so many quality choices in front of them.
"Maybe people sometimes confuse consistency and change [in flavor]," noted La Aurora president Guillermo Leon. "If you have a La Aurora Bristol Especiales, you want to have the same cigar always. Thats consistency. But if you want something more complex, you want a 1495."
But how much change is too much? "No surprises," said Leon, explaining that while a cigar which never changes character at all can get repetitive and dull, it does not make sense to have a chameleon that changes in flavor "like chicken to meat" during the smoke!
He noted further, "When Jose means complexity, it means change lets say sweet and caramelized, and some hint of nuts it moves between those." For example, in the popular Aurora Preferidos line with Cameroon wrappers, the flavor profile begins with sweetness, but with undertones of spice and just a suggestion of pepper. As the cigar is consumed, the spicy elements come forward in the middle and the peppery notes bloom toward the end and the caramelized flavor takes a back seat. That kind of change Leon and Blanco both endorse.
>> Cuba is famous for its Edicion Limitada series, introduced in 2000, and limited-edition cigars are more and more common among Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan producers. But Altadis U.S.A. has created a unique series around a special blend and then named each shape for one of its famed brands: Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Trinidad and H. Upmann.
The blend, made at the massive Tabacalera de Garcia in the Dominican Republic, features a Mexican-grown Corojo wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf binder and filler leaves grown in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The taste figures to be full-bodied and there are four sizes: Montecristo: 6 1/8 inches by 52 ring torpedo: $18.00 retail; Romeo y Julieta: 7 inches by 54 ring: $16.00 retail; Trinidad: 6 inches by 54 ring: $14.00 retail, and H. Upmann: 5 inches by 54 ring: $12.00 retail.
All sizes are packed in boxes of 21 and all cigars are double banded with the brand band on top and a second band with the "Edicion Limitada" label just below it.
>> The worlds second-largest tobacco concern, British American Tobacco just got bigger. It announced in late February that it had arranged the purchase of the House of Prince, Fiedler & Lundgren and J.L. Tiedemanns cigarette companies from Scandanavian Tobacco for $4.1 billion in cash and ST Group stock. These firms produced 27 billion cigarettes last year for ST, of which 19 billion were exported.
Thats good for BAT, which is growing by acquisitions as the cigarette industry continues to consolidate. In the meantime, what is ST going to do with all that cash? The company retained its cigar divisions, which includes the well-known Henri Wintermans brand as well as Nashville-based C.A.O. Cigars. Could ST be ready for some acquisitions of its own?
Thats the advice of La Aurora factorys energetic marketing director Jose Blanco, in an interview last week during the middle day of the well-organized first ProCigar Festival in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
"For me," he said, "a one-dimensional cigar is boring. The Aurora 1495 opened us up to complexity because of its six different leaves: wrapper from Ecuador, binder of Dominican Corojo and filler from Nicaragua, Peru, Piloto Cubano from the Dominican Republic and Dominican Corojo. "Its complex to start off and continues, and as you smoke it, you pick up hints of coffee, cocoa and other flavors. It isnt those flavors, of course, but you get a hint that your taste tells you is like something else it knows."
Executives at several Dominican factories agreed that todays cigar smoker is perhaps the best informed in the history of smoking and that the quality of leaf available today and the willingness of factories to work carefully through the process of manufacture makes this a "golden age" for cigars, especially for smokers in the U.S., who have so many quality choices in front of them.
"Maybe people sometimes confuse consistency and change [in flavor]," noted La Aurora president Guillermo Leon. "If you have a La Aurora Bristol Especiales, you want to have the same cigar always. Thats consistency. But if you want something more complex, you want a 1495."
But how much change is too much? "No surprises," said Leon, explaining that while a cigar which never changes character at all can get repetitive and dull, it does not make sense to have a chameleon that changes in flavor "like chicken to meat" during the smoke!
He noted further, "When Jose means complexity, it means change lets say sweet and caramelized, and some hint of nuts it moves between those." For example, in the popular Aurora Preferidos line with Cameroon wrappers, the flavor profile begins with sweetness, but with undertones of spice and just a suggestion of pepper. As the cigar is consumed, the spicy elements come forward in the middle and the peppery notes bloom toward the end and the caramelized flavor takes a back seat. That kind of change Leon and Blanco both endorse.
>> Cuba is famous for its Edicion Limitada series, introduced in 2000, and limited-edition cigars are more and more common among Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan producers. But Altadis U.S.A. has created a unique series around a special blend and then named each shape for one of its famed brands: Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Trinidad and H. Upmann.
The blend, made at the massive Tabacalera de Garcia in the Dominican Republic, features a Mexican-grown Corojo wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf binder and filler leaves grown in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The taste figures to be full-bodied and there are four sizes: Montecristo: 6 1/8 inches by 52 ring torpedo: $18.00 retail; Romeo y Julieta: 7 inches by 54 ring: $16.00 retail; Trinidad: 6 inches by 54 ring: $14.00 retail, and H. Upmann: 5 inches by 54 ring: $12.00 retail.
All sizes are packed in boxes of 21 and all cigars are double banded with the brand band on top and a second band with the "Edicion Limitada" label just below it.
>> The worlds second-largest tobacco concern, British American Tobacco just got bigger. It announced in late February that it had arranged the purchase of the House of Prince, Fiedler & Lundgren and J.L. Tiedemanns cigarette companies from Scandanavian Tobacco for $4.1 billion in cash and ST Group stock. These firms produced 27 billion cigarettes last year for ST, of which 19 billion were exported.
Thats good for BAT, which is growing by acquisitions as the cigarette industry continues to consolidate. In the meantime, what is ST going to do with all that cash? The company retained its cigar divisions, which includes the well-known Henri Wintermans brand as well as Nashville-based C.A.O. Cigars. Could ST be ready for some acquisitions of its own?