La Aurora USA, LLC announces the U.S. launch of the Santiago Collection, set to hit retailers nationwide in August. This new line combines La Aurora’s craftsmanship with enhanced affordability, complementing the Cazadores lineup.
Named after Santiago de los Caballeros, the heart of the Dominican Republic’s tobacco-growing region, the collection begins with the Santiago Maduro, offered in Robusto (5 x 50) and Toro (6 x 54). It features a blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican filler tobaccos, an Indonesian binder, and an Indonesian Maduro wrapper, priced at $2.50 and $3.00 per cigar, respectively.
“Blending a Maduro is about balance — sweetness from the wrapper, depth from the fillers,” said Manuel Inoa, La Aurora Master Blender. “Santiago Maduro uses both long-filler, and medium-filler tobaccos instead of only long-filler you’d find in our core line, so the real challenge was construction — finding leaves that would hold their burn and draw the entire way down, not just in the first third. We went through several rounds of blending to get that right without losing the coffee and wood notes people expect from us. The end result is a cigar that brings new smokers into the La Aurora family without asking them to compromise on quality.”
The Santiago Connecticut, scheduled for release in early September, uses the same binder and filler, but is rolled in an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper. It will come in the same two sizes.