Principle Partners With Five Dominican Cigar Legends for Boy Band

Darren Cioffi of Principle Cigars had an idea. What would happen if he had five of the biggest names in the Dominican Republic’s cigar industry each make a cigar for a singular release? Cioffi told halfwheel he didn’t want to put too many restrictions on each person, instead hoping to let their own creative freedoms reign.

So he sent each of the five men Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You” (1965) and asked them to make a 6 x 50 toro that interpreted the album. That was it.

Those five men were:

• José “Jochy” Blanco
• Eladio Díaz
• Hendrik “Henke” Kelner
• Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr.
• Manuel “Manolo” Quesada Jr.

Eventually, they each delivered a blend of their own and Cioffi had an impressive roster for a new band. Those five blends—each person made a different blend—will make up Principle’s Boy Band Vol. 1.

It’s due out in mid-November. There will be 5,000 boxes that each contain one cigar from the five makers and the boxes contain pictures from each man’s youth. The MSRP is expected to be around $16 per cigar or $80 per box.

“This is the ‘27 Yankees of cigar collaborations,’” said Cioffi in a press release. “Working with any one of these gentlemen throughout your career would be an honor; bringing them all together for one project is something momentous.”

Cioffi says he’s still deciding whether to disclose the blend details. He said that having five factories make cigars for one release was not the easiest logistically and as such, he was focused on getting everything ready for its debut at InterTabac 2024 last week in Dortmund, Germany, and the release later this year.

While the artwork for “I Put a Spell on You” is quite stoic, the artwork for Boy Band Vol. 1 is colorful and looks like it was created in the mid-1960s. As the Vol. 1 part of the name implies, Cioffi is already thinking about a sophomore release though he told halfwheel he’s leaning towards using an entirely new collection of blenders for Vol. 2.

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.