Fratello Arlequín Perfecto Heads to Old Virginia Tobacco Co.

This year, Old Virginia Tobacco Co.—a chain of cigar stores in Virginia—is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Like other stores celebrating similar anniversaries, Old Virginia has an exclusive cigar to mark the occasion.

The Fratello Arelquín Perfecto is a 6 x 58 perfecto, the fifth size of Arlequín to be released to date. Like the rest of the line, it uses a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, Ecuadorian habano binder, and fillers from Peru and Nicaragua.

Fratello says it has an MSRP of $12 per cigar and is limited to 5,000 cigars. It is sold in boxes of 12, meaning there should be roughly 415 boxes made. This is the first store exclusive for the Alrequín line.

“This was the right move. Arlequin continues to gain tremendous traction in the U.S. and Old Virginia Tobacco and its customers have truly embraced this cigar,” said Omar de Frias, founder of Fratello, in a press release. “To commemorate this occasion we worked on a perfecto size where due to its complexity in manufacturing only 150 cigars can be produced per day.”

This is the fifth size for the line and the second vitola to ship this month.

• Fratello Arlequín (6 x 50) — 2019
• Fratello Arlequín Robusto (5 1/2 x 52) — 2020
• Fratello Arlequín Toro (6 1/2 x 54) — 2020
• Fratello Arlequín Gordo (6 x 58) — 2021
• Fratello Arlequín Perfecto (6 x 58) — 2021

The original 6 x 50 Arlequín size was sold in a sampler that Fratello introduced in June 2019. At the time, the company said it was using it to get feedback about two new blends: Arlequín and Sorella, the latter of which is sold in international markets.

As for the name, Arlequín—also known as Harlequin—was a comedic servant for the Italian theatre Commedia dell’arte.