AVO Improvisation LE22 Heads to Stores

Yesterday, Davidoff of Geneva USA began shipping the new AVO Improvisation LE22s.

These two cigars—yes, there are two AVO LEs this year—are the final two cigars in the AVO Improvisation Series, which is the successor to the AVO Limited Edition Series. This year’s releases are called The Closing Improvisation, a nod to the brand’s founder, the late pianist and composer Avo Uvezian.

Both cigars measure 5 1/2 x 55, though the blends are entirely different. The AVO Improvisation LE22 Black uses an Ecuadorian wrapper over a Mexican binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The AVO Improvisation LE22 White uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper over a Dominican binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic.

MSRP is set at $16 per cigar and the cigars will come in boxes of 22 containing 11 of the LE22 Blacks and 11 LE22 Whites. There are 1,500 boxes designated for the American market.

If 22 sounds like a pecuiliar number, it’s one that has oftentimes been used for AVO releases as March 22 was Avo Uvezian’s birthday.

Prior to 2015, the AVO brand would release a limited edition each March to celebrate the occasion and until the last years of his life, Uvezian would visit stores promoting the cigar.  In 2015, Davidoff introduced the Improvisation Series to take over from the AVO LE program. For a few years, the Improvisation Series was a bit different than the normal AVO LE approach as there would be multiple releases per year, sometimes not in March. Since 2017, the Improvisation Series has more or less functioned the same as the original: one limited edition release each March.