CAO Pilón Añejo Shipping Next Month

CAO’s newest release is a trio of cigars that have aged for two years after rolling.

The CAO Pilón Añejo will ship to stores on April 11. It’s a new limited edition that is a follow-up to the CAO Pilón, which was released in 2015. This cigar’s name Pilón Añejo, means old pilón, a pilón is a pile of neatly organized tobaccos that are placed in rows and stacked on top of one another to help the tobacco cure, which cigar manufacturers typically call “fermentation.”

Pilónes can differ in shape (there are rectangular ones as well as oval ones), style (there are many different methods for organizing the individual rows of leaves) and size (some can get to be thousands of pounds with leaves piled five-feet off the ground.) For the original Pilón release, Agustin García and Rick Rodriguez opted to use a 19th-century method of creating small, round pilónes. The company said that the smaller size piles created less heat—which resulted in a greater reduction of ammonia and sugar content, which improve combustion—but took longer to process.

That method is being used for the new Pilón Añejo series, though the blends of the cigars are not the same. This release will use an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper over a Honduran habano binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

It will be offered in three sizes:

• CAO Pilón Añejo Robusto (5 1/2 x 54) — $8.89 (Box of 20, $177.80)
• CAO Pilón Añejo Toro (6 x 52) — $8.99 (Box of 20, $179.80)
• CAO Pilón Añejo Gigante (5.88 x 60) — $9.29 (Box of 20, $185.80)

Total production is limited to 5,000 boxes.

“With CAO Pilón Añejo, we’ve combined pilón fermentation which does such incredible things to the tobacco, with a full two years of aging of the finished cigars,” said Rick Rodriguez, CAO’s blender, in a press release. “Together, these methods add a whole new dimension to the blend. We’ve ultimately created a layered smoking experience that we could not have achieved through any other processes. This cigar is just a pleasure to smoke, and the team and I are really proud of it.”

The CAO Pilón Añejo is produced at STG Danlí in Honduras.