RoMa Craft Tobac Updating CroMagnon Line in 2024
RoMa Craft Tobac’s CroMagnon line will get major changes ahead of 2024.
Beginning next year, CroMagnon will use a different blend; most notably, a Pennsylvania broadleaf wrapper will replace the Connecticut broadleaf wrapper that has been used since the line debuted in 2011. Underneath that are a Sumatra hybrid binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. For context, the original CroMagnon blend used a Cameroon binder and fillers from Nicaragua.
Skip Martin, co-founder of RoMa Craft Tobac, told halfwheel that the change is because RoMa Craft Tobac cannot consistently buy Connecticut broadleaf wrapper that meets the company’s standards. Specifically, Martin said that the company cannot get enough of the tobacco that meets the standards without buying whole farm lots. Buying whole farm lots presents a different problem for RoMa Craft as the company has no use for the vast majority of the tobacco included in a whole lot purchase.
This is not a new problem. CroMagnon has not been in production since mid-2022, and it was removed from the order form in early 2023.
The first release of the updated CroMagnon is currently scheduled for December. A small number of stores—likely around a dozen—will receive the CroMagnon Timeline, a 6 1/4 x 50 toro vitola that features a 109-style cap, i.e. a cap that has a slight taper akin to a hybrid between a parejo cap and a belicoso. Previously, RoMa Craft Tobac used this size to celebrate its 5th anniversary.
Those Timelines will have an MSRP of $12 and come in bundles of 10 cigars.
To help delineate between the two blends, RoMa Craft Tobac will use a different color band than the black band that CroMagnon has used up until now.
Martin said the company is targeting a full launch of the new CroMagnon at the 2024 PCA Convention & Trade Show, which takes place March 22-25 in Las Vegas. At that time, the company will begin rolling out the updated blend in regular production vitolas and offer the cigars to its retailers.
The company’s Aquitaine line, which uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper over the same filler blend as the original CroMagnon, will remain the same.
This may not be the absolute end of the original CroMagnon blend. Martin said that he is open to making it again, whether that means as a limited edition made at Nica Sueño or even moving production to another factory that has a better supply of Connecticut broadleaf. As of now, there are no plans for either of those moves.
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.
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