Blackbird’s GLITCH Begins Shipping

Three new blends from Blackbird Cigar Corp. are shipping to stores today.

They all fall under the new GLITCH brand. All three use American and Dominican tobaccos in the filler, however, there are three different wrapper options:

• GLITCH Claro — Ecuador (Connecticut)
• GLITCH Habano — Ecuador (Habano)
• GLITCH Oscuro — Mexico (San Andrés)

In addition, the binder for the Claro and Habano is Mexican, whereas the Oscuro’s binder is from the Dominican Republic.

All three blends are offered in the same two sizes:

• Blackbird GLITCH Robusto (5 x 50) — $6.10 (Box of 20, $122)
• Blackbird GLITCH Toro (6 x 52) — $6.60 (Box of 20, $132)

“On behalf of the Blackbird Team, we are more than happy to announce this new product,” said Jonás Santana, Blackbird’s co-founder, in a press release when the cigar was announced in February. “For us, the feeling of a new creation is always a great motivation to keep growing in the cigar industry. This is an example of… listen to what the team has to say!! We can’t wait for you to enjoy this affordable but great cigar.”

The story behind the name and the blends is not a normal one.

The company says that Papo El Caballo—the nickname of Blackbird’s blender—was away from the factory and returned to check in on a blend. He smoked it and found that the blend was not correct. As it turns out, a new employee had written the wrong codes on two different types of tobacco. When the blend was being put together, one tobacco was mistakenly used for the other, and the end result was a different cigar than what was intended.

While the result was different, it wasn’t bad. So the company decided to continue to work on the blend, and it ended up becoming the new GLITCH line.