Joya de Nicaragua Rolls Barrel-Aged Cigar to Market
It's box-pressed, it's barrel-aged and it's debuting at the end of the month. Showcasing Nicaraguan filler tobacco aged in old oak casks, the Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial is a small-batch cigar line slated for a slow, but steady, production run of 500 boxes per month.
The new smoke is a follow-up to the 4,500 boxes of Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco Edicion Limitada released in 2013. Long sold out, it was only made in one size and created to celebrate the company's 45th anniversary. The Reserva Especial cigars are softly box-pressed like the original, but this time, they're coming out in four sizes rather than only one: Torpedo, 6 inches by 52 ring gauge; Toro, 6 1/4 by 50; Doble Robusto, 5 by 56; and Petit Corona, 4 1/2 by 46. All the tobaccos are Nicaraguan, save for the binder, which comes from the Dominican Republic.
"The response from around the globe when we first launched Cuatro Cinco encouraged us to create [another special] cigar, only this time on an ongoing basis," said Dr. Alejandro Martínez Cuenca, chairman and CEO of Joya de Nicaragua. "The blend is a milestone for our factory."
The band is similar to the first Cuatro Cinco, but is distinguishable by its silver edging (the original was edged in gold) and the words "Reserva Especial" across the top.
Select of the Drew Diplomat Retailers program will be able to sample a pre-release of the Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial during the last week of June. The rest of the Drew Diplomat Retailers will have to wait until July for the trade show.
The cigars are made at the Joya de Nicaragua S.A. factory in Nicaragua and distributed by Drew Estate, a division of Swisher International.
This article first appeared in the June 16, 2015 issue of Cigar Insider.
