LUXURY LIVING u
When Christopher Columbus discovered‘ the new world’ in 1492 he was greeted in Cuba by its original inhabitants the Tainos, who delighted in smoking bunches of dried leaves which they called‘ Cohiba ´ s’ fast forward 470 years to Cuba’ s revolutionary regime and a brand emerges that continues to revolutionize the cigar world today..
The story begins with Castro Fidel the Cuban leader, who driving in a car with his bodyguard asks his bodyguard what he is smoking, the bodyguard replies a fuma, a hand-made cigar made by a friend who worked at the nearby cigar factory, Castro tasted the cigar and enjoyed it so much that he ordered the cigars be made exclusively for him and his government officials including Ernesto“ Che” Guevara at a top secret location the El Laguito Factory, a huge white mansion set beside a small lake in Havana. Secrecy was paramount to Castro as he feared the CIA was plotting to assassinate him via a poisoned or exploding cigar.
It was here at the El Laguito factory that the Cohiba brand was devised. Tobacco leaves were sourced from plantations far and wide to try and recapture the original fuma taste with the final blend said to use leaves from ten of the finest plantations within the San Juan y Martinez and San Luis districts of the Vuelta Abajo growing area it was also during this development stage that an additional fermentation process was added to aid maturation.
The Cohiba brand was formally launched in 1968 and soon became the official diplomatic gift sent to other cigar-smoking world leaders packaged in a wooden box with a distinctive black and yellow band Cohiba cigars were fast becoming the brand-name of Cuba. Still unavailable for commercial sale thanks in part to the US 1962 US embargo act.
Having acquired a reputation amongst aficionado as one of the best cigars in the world the Cohiba was finally released commercially in 1982, in conjunction with the World Cup in Spain. At the time of its launch the brand had only three sizes the Classic line: Lancero, a size known in factories as Laguito No. 1; Corona Especial, or Laguito No. 2, and Panetela, or Laguito No. 3. In 1989, three further sizes were added: a Robusto, also named Robusto in factory jargon, an Exquisito, or Seoane, and an Esplendido, known as Julieta No. 2.
100 LUXURY LIVING