Freyja Arrives at U.S. Retailers This Week

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.

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.