General Cigar Co. has announced the return of its limited-edition CAO Amazon Basin cigar, which is defined by its Bragança tobacco that grows in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. The cigar comes in one size, a Toro measuring 52 × 152 mm (6”), and uses a high-priming Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, a Nicaraguan binder, and filler from Colombia and the Dominican Republic. It has a suggested retail price of $14.29 per cigar and is shipped without a traditional paper cigar band. Instead, it has a miniature rope of tobacco entwined around the upper portion, giving it a rustic appearance.
After harvesting, the Bragança tobacco leaves are rolled manually into dense logs called carottes which undergo a six-month fermentation. The carottes are then loaded onto a canoe and paddled out of the jungle down the Amazon River. From there, the tobacco heads to the STG Estelí factory in Nicaragua, where CAO cigars are produced.
The CAO Amazon Basin cigar comes in roughly hewn wooden boxes of 18 that resemble packing crates. The company has not disclosed exact production numbers, but has stated that this year’s release is smaller than the 6,000 boxes that were released in 2022 for the U.S. market.