AVO 90th Classic Covers Limited Edition Volume 3

Having been around the cigar industry since the 1980s, Avo Uvezian has made his mark by making some of the most prestigious cigars on the market. Born in 1926 in Beirut, Lebanon, Uvezian was originally known as a musician turned composer, a field in which he is most famously known for writing Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night”. In the mid 1980s, Uvezian met cigar master Hendrick Kelner in the Dominican Republic and together they started making some of the finest cigars in the industry. Later in the mid 1990s, AVO Cigars sold their distribution rights Davidoff Cigars. With Cigar Aficionado’s rating of 90, the AVO Classic is, well, a classic. There is simply no better way to put it.

Part of the AVO Improvisation Series, the AVO 90th Classic Covers Limited Edition was created to celebrate the 90th birthday of Avo Uvezian (who passed away in March of 2017 at the age of 91), a true embodiment of the jazz-loving musician and cigar impresario. With six different tobaccos from three countries, this bad boy begins with a mixture of rare long-leaf ligeros from the Dominican Republic that have been aged for 10 to 11 years. Securing that mixture is a zesty and refined Mexican Negro San Andres binder, which is then hugged by a gorgeous golden-brown Ecuadorian Habano 2000 wrapper. Medium to full-bodied and bold to the core, this stogie lends flavors of white pepper, sweet cedar, and oak. Our panel loved this smoke and recommended pairing it with a sweet iced tea.

Though tobacco is indigenous to Hispaniola, the tobacco industry in the Dominican Republic existed in the shadow of Cuba’s dominance through the 1960s. When the exodus of Cuban cigar makers began in the wake of the revolution, many decided the Dominican Republic would be ideal for the resumption of their livelihoods. Unrest in Nicaragua in the 1980s fueled the Dominican cigar industry further. The country now makes more than half of the premium cigars imported into the U.S.

The Cibao Valley and the nearby city of Santiago are the center of cigar production in the Dominican Republic. Three main varieties are grown here: the mild and native Olor Dominicano; the intense Piloto Cubano, brought from the Vuelta Abajo of Cuba; and San Vicente, a milder and more acidic Piloto hybrid. Dominican puros were once unheard of as it was widely thought impossible to grow quality wrapper leaf on the island, but new growing techniques are now allowing some exceptional puros to be produced.