PCA 2023: Patoro

Last year was a rare trade show for Patoro. Most years, Patoro has either nothing new or will introduce one new vitola. But for 2022, the company had a mostly new line to debut. This year Dr. Pablo Richard was back to normal: just one sort of new cigar.

Patoro is part of the De Los Reyes et al. booth. Like the other non-De Los Reyes brands in that booth, De Los Reyes makes Patoro cigars.

Here’s what I said about the booth in the De Los Reyes write-up:

While the old booth reminded me a lot of the De Los Reyes factory in the Dominican Republic—including dark hardwood furniture and paste-colored panels elsewhere—the new booth seems about efficiency.

I would venture to guess that the new booth is a substantial savings in cost and time to set up. As someone who is responsible for the logistics of halfwheel’s trade show booth: I understand this completely. Objectively, I liked the look of the old booth better. But I’m neither the one paying for it nor am I the one setting it up. If you knew the costs of everything related to the booth—or whether or not there is air-conditioning during set-up—I’m pretty confident you would understand that sometimes simplicity is the answer. Also missing from last year was Nirka Reyes-Estrella, though it appears she sent a film crew in her place.

When I stopped by, Richard was meeting with the team from Michael’s Tobacco, a shop in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and a longtime supporter of the brand. I have purchased Patoros from the store and can’t recommend the store(s) enough; it has one of the best staff of any cigar shop I’ve ever been to.

Patoro Platino Churchill

This vitola has been offered in Europe, but it will begin shipping to U.S. stores for the first time next month. I don’t know how many cigars Patoro has in Europe that it doesn’t currently sell in the U.S., but this trend of bringing them to the U.S. has been pretty consistent, albeit one at a time.

Anytime I see a Patoro, I’m reminded of the brand’s great tagline, “smoke less, but smoke the best.”

• Wrapper: Dominican Republic
• Binder: Dominican Republic
• Filler: Dominican Republic

• Patoro Platino Churchill — $23.60 (Box of 25, $590)

Production: Regular Production

Release Date: August 2023