Flor de Estelí Line Coming From La Zona

Erik Espinosa’s La Zona factory in Estelí, Nicaragua has its second public customer, Danny Moya & Nelson Ruiz’s Flor de Estelí. The brand, which will start with both a Habano and Maduro line follows Arandoza Cigars as the newest client brand for Espinosa’s factory, which is also now the home for 601 and Murcielago. Flor de Estelí will debut in four sizes Robusto (5 x 50), Toro (6 x 52), Belicoso (5 1/2 x 52) and Trabuco (6 x 60) in both Ecuadorian Habano and a San Andrés Maduro line that will be known as Flor de Estelí Prieto.

Both cigars will feature Nicaraguan fillers, come in boxes of 20 and range from $7.00-$9.00 in price. While banded cigars have appeared on the company’s Facebook page since late September, the pair says the cigars aren’t shipping until next month. Much like the namesake La Zona brand, the cigars are being described as medium-full.

“It’s one of the more premium cigars to come out of La Zona,” said Ruiz.

The pair says they hope to ship 15,000-30,000 cigars by the end of the year and have a Connecticut in the works for IPCPR 2013.

As for the name.

“It was funny because when we were thinking of names, Nelson is a second generation Cuban, I wanted a Spanish name. Erik suggested, ‘why you pick something in English.’ We went back and forth,” said Moya. “Estelí is the cigar capital. All the factories are in Estelí. A lot of tobacco grown is Estelí.”

Espinosa has told halfwheel on repeated occasions he intends on building La Zona into a factory to serve various clients.