In January 2012, George Rodriguez of Rodrigo Cigars announced The Corona Project, yesterday, it finally began shipping.

Back then, the plan was to work with Tabacalera William Ventura, who makes the rest of the company’s portfolio, to create a trio of corona-based vitolas, harkening back to classic sizes at a time when bigger ring gauges were all the popularity. Rodriguez worked with his then sales representative Brett Bowersox and the project was slated to be released in June 2012.

Fast forward to today and a single 5 3/4 x 43 size that features a pigtail cap and covered foot will be released initially. It uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, Ecuadorian sumatra binder and Dominican Criollo 98, Corojo and HVA ligero fillers. The cigars themselves were rolled over a year ago at Tabacalera William Ventura.

Pricing is set at $9.50 per cigar or $237.50 per box of 25. It’s limited to 295 boxes, which Rodriguez has signed himself. He told halfwheel another vitola was planned for 2015.

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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.