PCA 2023: La Aurora

Earlier this year, La Aurora announced that it would end a nearly three-decades long distribution agreement with Miami Cigar & Co. and in turn, open up its own distribution company in the U.S. I should start by reiterating that there’s no bad blood. La Aurora is still making Miami’s popular Tatiana line, and Nestor Miranda, co-founder of Miami Cigar & Co., was in the La Aurora booth while I was there. La Aurora wants to try to seriously grow the brand in the U.S. and Miami Cigar & Co. wasn’t interested in putting the kind of resources needed to try it.

Speaking of the La Aurora booth, it’s very nice. It’s large but comfortable. The products were laid out effectively, the color palette was great, and there were some other interesting features like nicer lighting. It had a roof structure, but it felt very open—just a great booth. While I don’t put much stock in the booth awards, it did win Attendee Choice Best in Show Large Booth. If I had been asked to name the best new large booth at PCA 2023, La Aurora would have been my vote, and it would not have been remotely close. I think there’s a strong argument that this was the best new booth regardless of any size, though the Wildfire booth was a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

Guillermo León and his family were present in the booth. Karl Malone and his family were present in the booth. (La Aurora makes Malone’s Barrel Aged cigars.) And Manuel Inoa, the company’s affable master blender was present. As was plenty of coffee, rum and cigars.

Here are my two favorite features of the booth. One is this quote on the inside of the booth, which is a great philosophy for a cigar company. On the backside of the booth, there was a timeline of important moments in the company’s history. A much grander version of this can be found at the La Aurora museum, which you can see by taking a tour of the company’s factory in the Dominican Republic.

La Aurora 120 Anniversary

La Aurora was founded in 1903, making this the 120th anniversary of the company. This Dominican puro was shown off at Procigar in February, so it doesn’t feel all that new, but it still hasn’t shipped. One of the largest retailers at the show told me they were very impressed with this cigar and some of the other work La Aurora is doing. He even said something along the lines of, if you told me the thing I would have been most excited about was La Aurora, I wouldn’t have believed you. That’s a very, very good sign for La Aurora 2.0 or whatever we are calling this.

• Wrapper: Dominican Republic (Habano 92)
• Binder: Dominican Republic
• Filler: Dominican Republic

• La Aurora 120 Anniversary Robusto (5 x 50) — $14 (Box of 20, $280)
• La Aurora 120 Anniversary Toro (5 3/4 x 54) — $16.10 (Box of 20, $322)
• La Aurora 120 Anniversary Gran Toro (6 x 58) — $16.80 (Box of 20, $336)
• La Aurora 120 Anniversary Churchill (7 x 47) — $16.10 (Box of 20, $322)

Production: Regular Production

Release Date: August 2023

La Aurora 120 Anniversary Preferidos

This is still being worked on, to the point where the blend is not finalized. What is known is that it will be the Preferidos #1 size, a double perfecto that measures 6 x 58. This is intended to be a luxury item with an MSRP likely in the $35-40 per cigar range. The prototype box said there would be 2,500 boxes, but I’m told that not even that number is finalized.

La Aurora even brought an original model of the Preferidos #1 from the company’s museum.

As cool as all of this is, I’m of the belief that the quicker La Aurora can get away from its practice of naming nearly every cigar after some anniversary, the better. I don’t think La Aurora is doing itself, retailers or consumers any favors by having lines called 100 Años, La Aurora 107, 115th Anniversary and 120th Anniversary, while also using dates like 1903, 1962 and 1987. To me, the issue is that a typical consumer might smoke one of these numerically-named cigars, and like it enough to want to buy more. But if they didn’t take a picture of the band or write down what number it was, the next time they’re in a cigar shop, good luck trying to get the clerk to point you in the right direction. There are just too many numbers.

This seems like one of those uniquely unnecessary paths toward confusion. If this is truly a different blend from the regular La Aurora 120th Anniversary, then I think it would be best to brand it completely differently. That said, this is par for the course for La Aurora. In 2019, it released the 115th Anniversary cigar, which included a regular production blend and a completely different—but similarly-branded—limited edition blend.

Update (Oct. 3, 2023) — La Aurora has announced the MSRP at $40 per cigar. The cigars are expected to arrive at stores in late October or November.

• Wrapper: Dominican Republic (Habano 92)
• Binder: Dominican Republic
• Filler: Dominican Republic

• La Aurora 120 Anniversary Preferidos (6 x 58) — $40 (Box of 10, $400)

Production: 2,500 Boxes of 10 Cigars (25,000 Total Cigars)

Release Date: October 2023

La Aurora 107 Rebrand 

Some of the La Aurora 107 lines are getting rebranded and new packaging. This means the lines should look similar to the La Aurora 107 Nicaragua. The original 107 is now known as the Ecuador and the 107 Maduro is now the 107 USA.

Update (March 10, 2024) — After measuring the La Aurora 120 Anniversary Toro, we are listing the size as 5 3/4 inches and not 5 1/4 inches as it was originally published.