Featured Cigars - October 2013

“Free Cuba!” A phrase you might not hear very often on the streets of Cuba, but a sentiment shared by many who live there. The call for the return of Cuba to its citizens is one we can hear echoing through the Cibao Valley of the Dominican Republic and uttered in cigar-smoke filled downtown bars where cigar masters gather and discuss their lingering discontentedness surrounding their flight from their homeland. Not surprisingly, the “Free...

The proprietor of one of the world's largest cigars factories, Nestor Plasencia's road to success has been anything but smooth sailing. Like most Cuban exiles of the mid 1960s era, Nestor has sharp, bitter memories of the island's post-Revolution period. The Plasencia family had two large fincas dedicated to growing wrapper leaf in Cuba when, on October 3, 1962, at 6 am, they were confiscated by the Castro government. It took nearly three...

The Carlos Toraño Virtuoso is the fullest-bodied line made by the legendary cigar family, who for generations has been growing some of the world's best tobacco. Making their start in Cuba, the Toraños now grow tobacco in virtually every tobacco growing region in the world. Their unmatched access to the finest crops is the secret behind the complexity of the Virtuoso collection. A virtuoso is defined as one with masterly skill or personal...

Introduced in 2009 by the founding fathers of Alec Bradley Cigar Company, Alan Rubin, Ralph Montero and George Sosa, the Alec Bradley Family Blend ranked as the sixteenth best cigar of 2009 and scored an impressive 94 by Cigar Aficionado. This medium-bodied beauty starts inside with an aged mixture of Honduran and Nicaraguan long-fillers that is held in place with a feisty Indonesian binder, ending with a Honduran light chocolate brown...

Ramon Bueso is a name that you may or may not have heard of, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t smoked his wonderfully created cigars. Bueso started in this industry over 40 years ago as a tobacco grower where his family’s land was the first tobacco farm in Honduras. At the ripe age of 15 he became a cigar roller, eventually evolving into factory supervisor at the famous Villazon factory which is the original home base for Honduran...