Smokes to Enjoy for Pan American Day

April 13, 2020

Smokes to Enjoy for Pan American Day

This year marks the 90th annual Pan American Day.  This is a holiday commemorating the first conference of the American States.  It was a meeting held in 1890 between several of the nations of North and South America.  These countries would later form the Organization of American States, a sort of United Nations of the countries in this Hemisphere.

During this crazy time, we find ourselves in, observing this holiday would actually be a great chance to come together, to acknowledge and appreciate the several countries in the area and embrace them.

It is particularly important to the cigar industry, as most cigars are manufactured in countries scattered throughout Central and South America.  So it is in this spirit that I put together a little list of some great cigars that I believe represent the spirit of Pan American Day.

Trinidad Espiritu

The spirit of the Caribbean is alive and well in this stunning addition to eh Trinidad legacy.  This project was one of the first collaborations between AJ Fernandez and Rafael Nodal when he moved over to Altadis.  When bringing two tobacco powerhouses together, you can expect the results to be incredible.  Even that word doesn’t describe how good this cigar is.

The Trinidad Espiritu pays homage to the late 60s and 70s, a time when the Caribbean was a vivacious epicenter of music, food, and culture.  Its blend is pure Nicaraguan tobacco, all from AJs farm.  It offers a wonderful mixture of spice, leather, and dashes of citrus.  Even its colored band is meant to represent the colors and lifestyle of the era, and it does so in a beautiful way.

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CAO Brazilia

In 2001, after five years of intense planning and preparation, CAO released one of its most important blends.  The CAO Brazilia was a landmark cigar, not just for CAO, but the industry as a whole.  It was one of the inaugural blends in CAO’s world line and used unique tobaccos from several nations, but it was also one of the first popular cigars to use Brazilian tobacco.

This bold smoke uses aged Nicaraguan tobacco for the filler and binder as well as a dark and intense Brazilian wrapper.  Notes of smoke, pepper, earth, and wood come together to make this an incredibly complex cigar.  This project helped put Brazilian tobacco on the map and remains one of the best-selling cigars in the industry.

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Tatuaje M.E.II

Tatuaje is well known for its use of unique tobaccos in crafting its blends.  The brand helped popularize several leaves that are now commonplace, such as broadleaf, and also tobacco that no one else has access to, such as the Sancti Spiritus.  A few years ago, Tatuaje released a limited-run smoke that really opened up everyone’s eyes to Mexican tobacco.  In 2019, the brand brought the line back, and it was even better than before.

This is the second installment of the limited-run series that was first released in 2011 and sold out very quickly. The M.E.II uses the same Mexican San Andrés wrapper over the aged Nicaraguan binder and fillers found on the original blend. It offers up flavors of earth, chocolate, pepper, wood, and coffee, delivered with the bold, full-bodied strength profile that Tatuaje smokers will love.

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H. Upmann Hispaniola

This cigar takes its name from the island that encompasses both the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  The secondary name is taken from the legendary Mendez family whose tobacco has been used almost exclusively in Altadis blends for years.  They are known for the famed pilotico and Andullo tobaccos that Montecristo has used in several highly rated cigars.

The Hispaniola is handcrafted in the Dominican at Tabacalera de Garcia.  It is hand-rolled using a blend of these Dominican tobaccos grown only by the Mendez family.

These include the Pilotico and Andullo tobaccos.  For additional complexity, they are also rolled with some Nicaraguan filler tobacco.  Following the Dominican binder, we see the reddish-brown Ecuadorian Sumatran wrapper that fits in perfectly with the red band.

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