Fuente y Padrón Legends Priced at $7,115 Per Box (Update: Now Shipping)

For the retailers that get a chance to sell the Fuente y Padrón Legends collaboration, it will likely be one of the most expensive—if not the most expensive—boxes of cigars they’ve ever sold. The MSRP for the highly anticipated collaborative project from Arturo Fuente and Padrón is priced at $7,115 per box of 40 cigars, roughly $178 per cigar.

Update (March 20, 2024) — “Very soon” meant “now.” Legends has begun arriving.

In 2022, the two companies showed off Legends for the first time to a crowd of hundreds of people during the 2022 PCA Convention & Trade Show.

The project was first announced in 2021 and shown off, with great fanfare, in 2022. Given the stature of both Arturo Fuente and Padrón, Legends has also been one of the most anticipated cigar releases ever, no doubt helped given the prolonged build-up towards its release.

Each box of Fuente y Padrón Legends will contain 40 cigars: 20 made by Arturo Fuente and 20 made by Padrón. Both cigars are 7 x 50 Churchills; the cigar made by Fuente is round, the cigar made by Padrón is box-pressed. No blend details about either cigar have been disclosed.

The project was created by Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr. and Jorge Padrón to honor their respective fathers: Carlos Fuente Sr. (1935-2016) and José O. Padrón (1926-2017). In an interesting twist, the cigar made by Padrón is to honor Fuente Sr., while the cigar made by Fuente is to honor Padrón.

“I made a cigar that I thought, if I ever run into (José O. Padrón) ever, the cigar in my pocket, that’s the cigar I’d like to hand him and say, ‘this cigar, let me know what you think, this is for you,’” said Fuente Jr. to halfwheel. “And knowing (José) Orlando Padrón, he probably wouldn’t have said anything. He would have said, ‘Gracias amigo.’ (Thank you friend.) He would have got the cigar, and maybe a year later, when I ran into him, he would have said, ‘by the way, that cigar wasn’t bad,’ and that would have meant an incredible, great cigar and that’s all I ever wanted from someone like him.”

While no date has been given, it would appear the first shipment is very close to heading to stores. Update: It was in stores by the time this post was published.  The two companies intended to ship the first batch of 750 boxes to stores last December, but some of those boxes were damaged in transit and so the first shipment was delayed. Now, both Arturo Fuente and Padrón are in the process of receiving their initial shipments. The process has moved far enough along that pricing has now been announced, one of the last steps before the cigars begin shipping to retailers.

It’s likely that the first batch of Fuente y Padrón Legends will be on sale soon, but retailers won’t be able to place orders for the cigars. Legends boxes are expected to be allocated, meaning the two companies will offer a retailer a certain number of boxes—or just a box—as opposed to letting the retailer decide how many boxes they would like to buy.

While it’s likely that most stores that receive boxes will be customers of both Arturo Fuente and Padrón, one of the two companies will sell the store the boxes. It’s unclear how that division will happen.

Whenever the cigars begin shipping, they will be the first batch of the cigars, but not the final. While the two companies have not committed to a total production run, halfwheel understands that the project will be large enough that consumers who want them—and are willing to pay the hefty price tag—should get a chance to buy them, it just might mean waiting for subsequent batches.

Previously, both Fuente and Padrón said that at least some of the proceeds of the sales would go to charity. After this post was published, Fuente Jr. clarified that the two companies are donating all of their profits to the families’ charities.

The Padrón Family Foundation was established in 2012 by José Orlando Padrón and his wife, Florinda. The foundation encourages others to apply for grants, which it then funds. In 2022, the foundation gave away more than half of a million dollars to 25 different causes, including various schools, St. Jude Children’s Hospital and a charity based in Estelí, Nicaragua, the city where Padrón’s factory is located. That year, the foundation itself took in less than $30,000 in contributions—it donated nearly 20x that amount—and spent zero dollars on staff.

One of the donations that it made in 2022 was to the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation. That’s the charity founded by the Fuente and Newman families, best known for its schools that it operates in Caribe, the Dominican town where Chateau de las Fuente—Fuente’s prized farm—is based. The Cigar Family Charitable Foundation now includes multiple different schools as part of one large campus. The main school offers a k-12 education—as well as clothes, meals, healthcare and recreational activities—to hundreds of local kids, all free of charge. A separate school offers technical training in fields like elder care and hospitality. Currently, the foundation is in the process of completing an arts academy.

The Fuente and Newman families pay all of the administrative and overhead costs associated with the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation.

As for the price tag, it’s neither the most expensive cigar ever nor the most expensive non-Cuban cigar, but the 40-count box makes it a very expensive box purchase.

For example, Davidoff’s Oro Blanco now has an MSRP of $600 per cigar, but it’s sold in boxes of one or 10. The most expensive commercialized non-Cuban cigar is likely the Gurkha HMR, which has seen its price climb steadily to be more than $1,000 per cigar. Gurkha’s website lists a box of 20 as having an MSRP of $75,000—or $3,750 per cigar—though the HMR can be found at some stores for $500 per cigar. In recent years, Habanos S.A. has greatly raised the ceiling of Cuban cigar prices. There are now multiple Cohiba releases that have been priced at more than $250 per cigar, a trend that does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Update (March 20, 2024) — The cigars have begun shipping. This story was originally published on March 19, 2024.

Update (March 21, 2024) — Added details that the two companies have pledged their profits to their respective charities.