Toraño Exodus 1959 ‘50 Years’ Salomon

Carlos Toraño cigars have been around for over 100 years! Their four generations of family cigar-making tradition began back in 1916 when Don Santiago Toraño emigrated from Spain to Cuba. After the Cuban revolution of 1959, his son Carlos would forever change the tobacco industry by introducing the concept of growing Cuban seed tobacco plants in the Dominican Republic. The seeds he brought from Cuba to the Dominican Republic yield tobacco that is today known as 'Piloto Cubano'—a term you may be familiar with—which we can all enjoy these days due to the instincts of this cigar maestro. Since Carlos' untimely death, his son, Carlos A. Toraño has continued the family business, expanding tobacco-growing to Nicaragua, Mexico and Ecuador, while also bringing Carlos Sr.'s grandson into the trade. Today, the company is the only family cigar business to own and operate cigar factories in each of the leading cigar producing countries (Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic).

The Exodus 1959 ‘50 Years’ commemorates the mass departure of Cuban cigar families and their impact on the cigar industry after the nationalization of all tobacco farms and cigar factories by the Cuban government in 1959. The Toraños were one of those very important families. Hand rolled in Honduras, this medium to full bodied smoke comes dressed in a gorgeous sun-grown Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper with a Honduran binder and a bevy of Nicaraguan long-fillers from the Pueblo Nuevo and Estelí regions. Complex, balanced, and smooth, this stogie is brimming with sweet notes of earth, spices, and cocoa. Not only did this handsome smoke receive a 93 rating from Cigar Aficionado, but it also made their Top 25 Cigar honors in 2006. Pair this smoke with a Cabernet Sauvignon on a warm evening after dinner.

Honduras has been a tobacco growing and cigar manufacturing area for hundreds of years, but it was the Communist revolution in Cuba that really put Honduras on the map. In the 1960s, many Cuban cigar makers fled their homeland and arrived in Honduras to re-establish their way of life. The immigrants took advantage of the climate, soil, and geography, which were well-suited to tobacco growing, and began producing high quality cigars. The center of the Honduran cigar industry is the city of Danli and the nearby Jamastran Valley. The majority of the world’s pure Corojo tobacco is grown here, now that Cuba has stopped production of this iconic, spicy, and rich variety in favor of Corojo hybrids. Other important areas of Honduran cigar production include the Talanga Valley, Copan, and Trojes.