In recent years, Costa Rica has become a much larger name in the U.S. cigar scene. Much of that has been done through Tabacos de Costa Rica S.A. and the rise in popularity of the brands produced there including Atabey, Byron, Cuba Rica and MBombay. There are however other companies and factory making cigars in Costa Rica, one of which is Brun del Ré, a brand that probably has more notoriety in Europe than it does in the U.S., but nonetheless, they used this year’s IPCPR Convention & Trade Show to introduce two new liens.
1638 Gran Toro Ltd. Edition
This new cigar is named in honor of the year that Costa Rica began exporting tobacco to Mexico and Nicaragua. The cigar is a single 5 x 58 Dominican puro. It’s limited to a total of 50,000 cigars between 10-, 20- and 50-count boxes.
The company says it will arrive in the U.S. in August with a price point around $7-8.
Piccolo
On the complete opposite end is Piccolo, a new line of petites measuring 3 x 44. Three different blends are made all using the same tobacco origins: Ecuadorian wrapper, Indonesian binder and Costa Rican and Nicaraguan fillers. The company describes the Piccolo Strong, which features a maduro wrapper as the stronger of the bunch, but the Ltd. Edition and Smooth are both listed as “medium.”
This will once again arrive in August with pricing around $3.20-3.25 depending on the blend. All three versions are offered in boxes of 10.