Fratello The Lunar Cameroon

Earlier this month, Intuitive Machines delivered its Nova-C lunar lander to Cape Canaveral, Fla. ahead of a planned launch aboard a SpaceX rocket, currently scheduled for Jan. 12, 2024. Welcome to halfspace or spacewheel.

Intuitive Machines has a contract with NASA to place five scientific instruments on the moon. Whenever the first craft lands, it will be the first time an American spacecraft has landed on the moon since 1972. Inside the craft will be scientific instruments that are way above my head, but on the outside will be various companies’ logos, including Fratello’s, the cigar company.

If you had to guess which cigar company’s logo would be going to space, Fratello would be the obvious guess. Omar de Frias, pictured above with the Nova-C lander, founded Fratello while he still worked at NASA, and he has used that NASA background as part of the marketing for Fratello, though never used space as a branding theme quite like this. Coinciding with the Fratello logo on the spacecraft, the company has released a trio of new cigars that come packaged in boxes that look like the Nova-C lunar lander. They are called The Lunar, or The Lunars.

There are three different cigars, each a 6 x 50 toro made by La Aurora.

Two of the cigars—The Lunar Cameroon and The Lunar Connecticut—are regular production offerings. They are each priced at $14 and come in boxes of 15 cigars. The Cameroon uses a Cameroon wrapper over a Dominican binder and Nicaraguan fillers, while the Connecticut uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut-seed shade-grown wrapper over a Mexican binder and fillers from Cameroon, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

There is also the Fratello The Lunar Limited Edition Humidor, which comes in much fancier boxes that have legs for the lunar lander model. That cigar is made entirely of Dominican tobacco and is priced at $25 per cigar. It’s also limited to just 200 humidor boxes of 18 cigars, though 25 of those boxes are going to Intuitive Machines.

All three versions of the cigar went on sale in June via select events before shipping nationally to stores in August.

• Cigar Reviewed: Fratello The Lunar Cameroon
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: La Aurora Cigar Factory
• Wrapper: Cameroon
• Binder: Dominican Republic
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 50
• Vitola: Toro
• MSRP: $14 (Box of 15, $210)
• Release Date: June 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

If you are going to do a theme, lean into it. The Fratello The Lunar’s band is a metallic graphic of the moon, showing craters and all. Another interesting tweak, whereas most of Fratello’s lines have a band that reads FRATELLO in the angled script, this cigar says LUNR. As for the cigars themselves, they look like they use a Cameroon wrapper. That means some of the veins protrude more than most, the discoloration can be high and there are small black spots throughout. The aroma from the wrapper is medium to medium-full and led by a ton of acidity and ammonia over barnyard, woods and some milk chocolate. The feet of two cigars smell like I put my nose into a bag of baking chocolate, though there’s some acidity carrying over from the wrapper. The third cigar still has those sensations, but they are more muted. The cold draws differ from cigar to cigar. One has a balanced mixture of peanuts, saltiness, leather, berries and creaminess. Another has peanut butter and soy sauce over some muted pepper. The final cigar reminds me of Raisin Bran cereal along with lots of nuttiness and woodiness. What’s consistent between the three is that they are medium-full in intensity and that I can smell the wrapper’s acidity while taking the cold draw.

Nuttiness, one time joined by espresso, is the star of the show on the first puffs. There are different types of nut flavors—peanuts, peanut butter, walnuts, other nuts I don’t know by name—on top of cedar, praline, mustard seeds, earthiness, popcorn and white pepper. All three cigars start medium-full, but very rich. Pretty early on, it becomes apparent that the second cigar I smoke is going to be an outlier. The draw is much tighter than the first and third cigars I smoke, something that I eventually try to fix with a second cut. It’s also the only cigar that shows off the downside of Cameroon cigars: it can crack in dry environments. Whether the tight draw and this being the only cigar to develop cracks are related is something I can’t entirely figure out, but I do think the tight draw helps explain why the flavor isn’t as good as the other two cigars. Nuttiness—oftentimes in the form of sweet peanut butter—is the leading flavor for all of the first third. Leather, praline, white rice, popcorn and cedar all make appearances throughout. There’s also a lingering white or black pepper underneath all of that, but it’s overwhelmed by the core flavor, which is extremely rich, almost like it got turned into a warm custard. The cigars tend to finish drier with mineral flavors joining the nutty core, though sweet honey, creaminess and white pepper provide some contrast. Retrohales sometimes just add more nuttiness, though other times, an interesting wheat cracker flavor or vegetal mixture can join the fray. There is a noticeable change with the retrohale’s finish, which varies from a melon-like sweetness to toasty flavors with added mineral components. Flavor is medium-full or full, body is medium-full and strength is medium. While the second cigar struggles with a few different aspects, the other two cigars appear to be rolled very well and have no construction issues in the first third.

There is no knocking the nuttiness off its perch as the dominant flavor of the Fratello The Lunar Cameroon. Like before, sometimes it’s a generic flavor, other times a more complex melody, but oftentimes, it’s very peanut butter-like. Woodiness—especially on the second cigar—infuses itself more with the nuttiness, but it never sticks around for a full inch of the cigar. Secondary notes include butter, white pepper, generic starchiness, leather and some sugar. There’s typically not much of a pronounced change in the finish, though the second cigar has an added amount of harshness after the smoke has left the mouth. The largest change is that the cigar seems drier, fuller and smoother. Like the first third, sometimes a retrohale produces just a richer version of the same profile I get in the mouth. At times, there are retrohales that taste like a drop of sugar has been added before the nuttiness invades to take over the profile. In general, the largest difference is the texture, which is thicker than I recall the first third being. The retrohale’s finish adds a thick earthiness to the mixture, though one cigar tastes like I’m having a medium-dark roast espresso. Flavor is full, body is medium-full and strength remains medium. The first and third cigars continue to show excellent construction, while the second cigar suffers from repeated burn issues and is now forcing me to use my lighter a lot more.

I would have been more surprised than not to find the nuttiness no longer leading the profile and it still it is, but different in the final third. While I don’t think the nuttiness goes away, it’s becoming increasingly sharper and drier to the point that it not only tastes differently than it did before but also tastes like something that I might not have immediately identified as nuttiness. The cigar’s methodical progression means that it’s hard to believe this isn’t a modified version of that nutty flavor, though it’s a different experience compared to the earlier parts of the Fratello The Lunar Cameroon. Burnt milk, creaminess and straw have much larger roles than any flavor did before that. On one hand, it’s nice to see a change; on the other hand, it’s getting too dry and too sharp for me, especially given that I don’t drink anything, including water, during these reviews. The finish has lots of earthiness—dry earth, freshly rained-on earth, some barnyard—along with the nuttiness and burnt milk creaminess. I also notice that popcorn, a flavor that had lingered in the background for most of each cigar has disappeared on all three cigars. One cigar has peppermint, though the other two cigars have a more generic herbal flavor. It’s an interesting note, but secondary to the dryness and sharpness. Retrohales see the nuttiness back to its familiar perch, joined by something that reminds me of the most generic hot dog bun—one cigar is more of a raw dough than bread flavor—along with sweetness and burnt milk. They finish pretty similar with the flavors fading into a dry oblivion. Flavor is full or close to full, body is medium-full and strength is medium-plus. Construction is the same as before: two cigars have no issues while the second cigar I smoke is needing regular touch-ups from my lighter.

Final Notes

• I didn’t grow up as someone fascinated by space or rockets, but as I grow older, I am more interested in it as a concept. I find the idea of any sort of cigar tie-in, no matter how small, to be very cool if, for nothing else, it reminds me to think more and more often about what’s out there. We have barely explored the moon, yet it’s the rock we’ve explored more than any other beyond our own. Just trying to contemplate how small the moon is in the context of what we are aware of in space is about as mind-blowing as anything I can try to process. It is a tiny fraction. Seeing a cigar company’s logo going up to the moon is the other side of the equation: how incredibly small the world I see with my eyes is to the moon’s existence. Any one human is incredibly tiny in the concept of the universe, though simultaneously, a person will really only experience their own universe.

• I guess it is at this point that I should bring up that Alec Bradley once attached cigars to a weather balloon and had it go up into the stratosphere, which is seemingly the closest cigars have ever gotten to the moon.
• I also found the packaging of this release to be interesting and fairly well done. I bring that up because, both in our comments section and in private conversation, I’ve seen others with negative things to say about this packaging. I’m not really sure I understand why this is the one that gets the vitriol but to each their own. I’ll take this over a standard box, though the regular production boxes are perhaps not the best boxes for a retailer to merchandise. Then again, that’s every box that has the cigars packed vertically.
• If you are wondering what kind of lighter to use to light the cigar, I’d recommend S.T. Dupont’s Apollo Collection, which remains one of my favorite special releases from the French company. The more appropriate lighter is probably the SpaceX Starship Torch, a torch flame lighter that looks like a Starship rocket and which appears to have recently been making its way to those who ordered it, though halfwheel’s order has not yet arrived. I lit mine with the Blazer BP207 The Torch.
• The first cigar I smoked was very good, which probably made the second cigar all the more disappointing. Overall, that second cigar was average, though a flawed cigar that had both highs and lows mixed in with a lot of simply okay aspects. As I write too often, poor construction—in this case, a tight draw—will cause the cigar to taste worse.
• The cigars came in the cheaper-feeling cellophane. It’s shinier than normal and just feels different.
• These cigars do not have a triple cap, instead, it’s a much more basic cap. The top of the cigar—especially on the second cigar—almost looked like it was getting into the 109-style cap, where it’s even more tapered than normal.
• The final cigar I smoked had an aroma in the final third that reminded me of the smell of smoked brisket, taking me back to standing in line at a barbecue joint.
• Fratello advertises on halfwheel.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was just over two hours.
• Site sponsor Atlantic Cigar Co. carries the Fratello The Lunar Cameroon.