La Galera 85th Anniversary Arriving at Retailers

After a delay of several months, the La Galera 85th Anniversary has begun arriving at retailers.

The line celebrates the 85th anniversary of Tabacalera Palma by way of two new cigars, one blended by José “Jochy” Blanco and one by his son, José Manuel Blanco. Both cigars are 6 x 52 toros and share a common Dominican corojo binder along with Dominican piloto cubano and criollo 98 fillers, though Jochy Blanco’s blend uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper, while the younger Blanca’s uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper.

“My father’s blend was inspired by my grandfather, Don Nanán, who loved Connecticut wrapper almost as much as his nine children,” said José Manuel Blanco. “He combined decades of unused blending techniques with Dominican seed tobaccos and produced a traditional Dominican cigar made with corojo binder, with Piloto Dominicano and Criollo 98 filler from our Jacagua and Gurabo farms, giving it the typical raisin and nutmeg notes of Dominican tobaccos.”

The cigars come in decorative boxes that include 10 of each blend for a total of 20 sticks, while the lids are designed to be used as an ashtray. A total of 2,021 boxes have been produced and have an MSRP of $290, which works out to $14.50 per cigar.

“When we sat down to think of ways to accurately convey what this occasion meant to us, we both decided to consult our fathers,” said José Manuel Blanco in a press release. “My father revisited dozens of scribbles and stand-alone paragraphs in my grandfather’s notebooks and reexamined the tobacco growing and processing wisdom of two generations, along with the cigar manufacturing wisdom of one generation. I borrowed my father’s wisdom after bribing him with some cheap whiskey.”