Gurkha is set to begin shipping two of its Year of the Dragon releases tomorrow, as the versions made by AJ Fernandez and E.P. Carrillo will head to stores on Friday, April 19.
The version made by AJ Fernandez, which wears green bands, uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper atop a Nicaraguan binder and filler. It is offered in a 6 5/8 x 52 box-pressed perfecto that is priced at $25 per cigar and $250 for a box of 10 cigars.
Meanwhile, the version made by E.P. Carrillo wears black bands and uses a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, an Ecaudorian Connecticut binder, and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. It is offered in a 6 5/8 x 54 toro extra and is also priced at $25 per cigar and $250 for a box of 10 cigars.
Both versions have already received a very small release by way of a five-pack sampler that was created for Smoke Inn, a South Florida retailer, that were released during its Great Smoke 2024 event in February.
The company has two more Year of the Dragon releases coming to stores this year: one made by Oliva that is slated for June, and one made by Oscar Valladares that is slated for August or September. All of the blends are limited editions, with 2,000 boxes of 10 cigars being produced. They will join another Year of the Dragon cigar from Gurkha, a 6 3/4 x 52 figurado made by El Artista that was released in mid-December 2023. That cigar was a 6 3/4 x 52 figurado priced at $25 each used an unspecified “proprietary blend” of tobaccos. There were just 1,000 individually numbered boxes of 15 cigars produced for that release.