La Aurora 1495 Series Robusto

On October 3, 1903, Eduardo León Jimenes used a small investment and founded La Aurora cigar factory in the Don Pedro, Guazumal community in the province of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. The company has been passed down over generations and is still run by Don Eduardo’s family as the business continues to thrive. In the year 1495 Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean and landed in the Dominican Republic. Once there he saw the fertile valley of Cibao, the valley that produces some of the best tobaccos in the world. He also helped found the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, also known as just Santiago. The La Aurora 1495 Series in your shipment today honors the foundation of the city of Santiago de los Caballeros by using a dazzling, toothy, thick, and marbleized Ecuadorian-grown wrapper leaf, a Brazilian binder, and an aged and complex blend of Dominican Corojo and Dominican-seed ligero grown in Nicaragua. Sit outside with a Highland Park 12 and enjoy chewy and spicy notes of black pepper, leather, spice, and wood. This medium bodied smoke earned a well-deserved rating 90 from Cigar Aficionado.

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.