After several weeks of teasers and fanfare, we are proud to announce that our latest project, Cabanas™ is now available.  Cabanas™ took over a year of planning, blending, and coordination.  We wanted this cigar to not be just another private label product, but to be unique and special in its own right.

I am proud to say I think this is one of the best in-house cigars we have ever created and I am proud to have been a part of it.  Before we jump into the specifics of the blend let me give you a little background on the brand and what makes it so special.

The Cabanas™ brand is one of the oldest in existence.  With a start date of around 1810, this cigar predates every Cuban heritage brand that you are aware of.  It beats out Partagas by 30 years, Montecristo by more than 100 years, and Cohiba by 150 years.  It was the first recorded Cuban cigar brand.

Now, you may be asking “why have I never really heard of Cabanas™ before now”?  The reason for this is that the brand didn’t receive the international attention or awareness that other Cuban cigars did, mostly because it was valued as a small batch, the local cigar.

When the demand for the big-name brands began to increase following the Cuban embargo, Cabanas™ was eventually discontinued.  It was brought back as a machine-made brand in the late 1980s but it was ultimately shelved for good in 2005.

At JR Cigars, however, we felt that the story and the name had so much potential, which is why we decided to breathe new life into it, this time using one of the most famed and respected Cuban cigar blenders in the world.

While the American cigar smoker is well aware of who Don Pepin Garcia® is now, many might know his deep Cuban origins.  Pepin began working in the Cuban cigar industry from a very early age in his hometown of Baez.

He would go on to spend 30 years in Cuba honing his skills as both a roller and a blender.  He was awarded several prizes and eventually achieved the coveted title of a Class 8 Master roller, the highest in the industry.  He has worked on such legendary brands including Partagas, Montecristo, and he was also in charge of Quality Assurance for the Cohiba brand.

Pepin eventually left Cuba with his family and settled first in Nicaragua, and then in Miami.  He was a legend in the Cuban industry but was relatively unknown to the American market at this point.  He began to gain recognition after working with Pete Johnson to create the now-famous Tatuaje brand.

After the success of Tatuaje, he would then open a much larger facility in Nicaragua and begin his My Father™ brand.  He has been awarded several honors including Cigar of the Year award by Cigar Aficionado twice- an almost unheard-of achievement only rivaled by Oliva, Padron and Arturo Fuente.

When discussing who should blend this age-old Cuban heritage brand, Pepin Garcia and his team were a perfect choice.  His knowledge of Cuban cigars along with his unrivaled mastery of Nicaraguan tobaccos made it a match made in heaven.

The brand-new Cabanas™ is rolled by hand at Don Pepin®’s My Father™ factory in the heart of Esteli, Nicaragua.  It uses a blend of aged Nicaraguan tobaccos for the filler, followed by a double binder from Jalapa and Esteli.

The truly eye-catching piece, is the exquisite Habano Rosado wrapper, the same used on the original My Father™ line.  It is oily, with a slight reddish hue to it.

This combination of tobaccos gives the medium to full-bodied cigar a rich and complex profile.   Notes of spice, coffee, and molasses are combined effortlessly to give you a flavorful yet smooth experience.

The Cabanas™ is available in four traditional sizes: a Robusto, a Toro Gordo, a torpedo and my personal favorite, the Churchill.

While this is our second private line from the My Father™ factory, I would have to say this is one of the finest cigars we have ever worked on and one of the best to come out of that factory.

Its combination of rich flavors, near-perfect construction, and unique backstory makes Cabanas™ one of the most exciting releases of the year. Enjoy your box today, only at JR Cigars.