The second full line from Las Cumbres Tabaco will be arriving at U.S. retailers this week, as Emma Viktorsson’s Freyja began shipping last Thursday.

Select retailers in Sweden have had the cigar for a few weeks, and Viktorsson said it’s been met with solid reviews, telling halfwheel that the first shipment was sold out within a week and the third batch is currently en route.

While Las Cumbres Tabaco is known as the home of José Blanco’s Señorial line, Viktorsson made it clear that she did not blend Freyja with the assistance of her husband or with Jochy Blanco, owner of Tabacalera Palma where the cigar is produced. Instead, she worked with Geraldito Perez, the production manager at the factory, and crafted a cigar with a Dominican criollo ’98 wrapper, Mexican San Andrés binder along with filler tobaccos consisting of Dominican criollo ’98, Dominican Piloto Cubano and Nicaraguan tobacco grown in Estelí.

Las Cumbres Freyja

The brand gets its name from Swedish mythology, in particular the Viking goddess of beauty and fertility that was chief of the Valkyrie, the female figures who choose who lives and dies in battle. When the cigar was announced, Viktorsson said that Freyja was the bridge between her ancestry and the cigar countries which she calls home today.

Freyja is being released in four sizes, each named for a part of Viking mythology: Sessrúmnir (5 3/4 x 42, $7) is a corona larga whose name comes from Freyja’s Heavenly Hall to which she carried fallen Viking warriors. The 5 1/2 x 50 robusto is called Valhalla ($7.85); its name comes from the place where the Vikings’ main god, Odin, would take the fallen warriors. The 6 x 54 toro is named Thor’s Toro ($9) and gets its name from the well-known god who is associated with storms, strength, the protection of mankind, fertility and healing. The line also has a figurado in the Valkyrie Pyramid (6 1/2 x 52, $10), which is another nod to Freyja as chief of the Valkyries.

The line was shown off at the 2015 IPCPR Convention & Trade Show and was expected to begin shipping immediately after, but production issues with the boxes pushed the release back a few weeks.

The U.S. debut will culminate this week with an official launch party on Friday, Sept. 18 at Sanj’s Smoke Shop in Bloomfield, N.J.

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Patrick Lagreid

I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for MLB.com, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.