Behold a legendary Cuban leaf, grown in Honduras — and raised to be smoked at FL410. 

As anyone in the airplane industry knows, creating a new plane is a bit of a messy science. Just look at the road to production of the new VLJs, strewn liberally with not-quite-there designs and didn’t-quite-make-it companies.

Cigars are no different: No matter how good an idea for a new stogie might sound during a brainstorming session in the smoking lounge, actually making that cigar may prove more complicated than expected.

That fact helps make the Camacho 10th Anniversary, by Camacho Cigars, especially appealing to the smoke connoisseur. This is not your normal medium to full-bodied cigar: The wrapper, binder and filler have been rolled from authentic Corojo tobacco, a strain originally grown in Cuba’s Vuelta Abajo region and renowned as a wrapper for Cuban cigars. This is especially interesting, given that Cubans stopped growing Corojo some years ago, due to its susceptibility to disease and the difficulty of working with the delicate leaf.

Attempts in other countries to grow the legendary (and fickle) tobacco have met with limited success, with cigar manufacturers using limited amounts to augment their existing brands. But for the past 10 years (hence the name), Corojo has been happily growing away on Camacho’s acreage in Honduras, under the watchful eye of father-son owners Julio and Christian Eiroa — so happily, in fact, that the company decided it had enough to start making cigars entirely from it.

For now, the cigars are being offered in 21-count boxes, and in four sizes — 50 x 4.5 ($10.50/stick), Torpedo ($12.25/stick), 11 x 18 ($12.50/stick) and 60 x 6 ($12.75/stick) — and Christian Eiroa boasts that the powerfully flavored 10th Anniversary will outsell the new Camacho Select blended by his father. Filial competitiveness aside, they are clearly poised to fly . . . right off the shelves of your finer smoke shops.  camachocigars.com

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