Balmoral Releases Year of the Monkey Sampler to Asian Duty Free Markets

Agio Cigars is once again celebrating the coming Lunar New Year with a cigar sampler for the duty free market, as the company has released the Year of the Monkey sampler, which contains 12 of its Balmoral Dominican Selection cigars.

If the sampler looks familiar, it is for good reason as the company released an identical sampler last year in celebration of the Year of the Goat. Each sampler contains four small panatelas, four panatelas, two coronas and two corona tubes, with a price of $49 per sampler. Just 2,700 samplers are being produced for the release, an increase from last year’s production of 2,000 samplers.

The sampler is currently available via duty free stores in China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Qatar, Ethiopia, Netherlands and Germany.

The Balmoral Dominican Selection uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper, Dominican Olor binder and a short filler blend of Dominican Olor, Piloto Cubano, and Brazilian Bahia leaves. The cigars are made at the Royal Agio Cigars factory in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic.

Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury, the G-League's Valley Suns, and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for Major League Baseball, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.