La Aurora makes various perfecto vitolas, but it’s best known for a shape called preferidos, a perpendicular double perfecto. It has long sold those cigars in metal tubos, but in 2023, it added a decidedly different preferido en tubo. To celebrate its 120th anniversary, a five-size line was created, unsurprisingly named La Aurora 120 Anniversary.
One of the five sizes is a limited edition perfecto, but instead of the regular two-piece tubo that it uses for other preferidos, it created a metal coffin with a hinge opening, opening more like a burial coffin than a traditional tubo. Inside each tubo is a 6 x 58 Preferidos #1 vitola.
Cigar coffins have come in many shapes and sizes, usually a slide-top, sometimes a wooden, hinged coffin, even the unusual form-fitting wooden coffin used on the Micallef Leyenda line, but I can’t remember ever seeing something like the coffin housing the 120 Anniversary Limited Edition.
At 92g, it’s also one of the heaviest coffins ever used to store a cigar. The coffins are so heavy, it’s difficult to tell whether they are empty or have a cigar inside just by picking them up.
In addition to the coffin and sticking with the hinged theme, the 10-count box features a lid split down the middle and opens on hinges attached to the base of the box. Topped off with a rose-gold colored medallion adorning the lid and rose-gold colored hardware, the entire presentation is impressive and something that will easily catch your eye sitting on the humidor shelf — if you can find one of the only 2,500 boxes produced.
While most of the preferidos that La Aurora sells today are smaller than this vitola, the company wanted to lean into its history with the larger Preferidos #1 vitola. In addition, those jewels on the coffin are a throwback to how La Aurora once packaged its preferidos. — Brian Burt.
