Southern Draw Shows Off New Packaging and Sizes for Morning Glory and Evening Primrose
On Friday, Southern Draw Cigars took to social media to announce that its Morning Glory and Evening Primrose lines would soon be getting new sizes and packaging.
The two lines are getting three new sizes, which come from retailers’ requests for best-selling vitolas:
- Southern Draw Morning Glory / Evening Primrose Robusto (5 1/2 x 54)
- Southern Draw Morning Glory / Evening Primrose Toro (6 x 52)
- Southern Draw Morning Glory / Evening Primrose Gordo (6 1/2 x 60)
“The final vitolas have been chosen after careful consideration – logical – the 20-count boxes to keep ’em affordable and in the best-selling sizes as requested by our valued retail partners,” the company wrote.
As for pricing, it has yet to be announced, but Robert Holt told halfwheel that it will be in line with Southern Draw’s current core blends. Those prices will kick off a return to what the company calls a simple pricing model where the core lines share the same pricing structure.
Those new sizes will now come in 20-count boxes, a change from the 10-count boxes of the previous sizes, and will get an updated packaging design.
Morning Glory was announced in early October 2022, debuting at Cigars International in two sizes that wouldn’t be part of the regular release: a 6 1/2 x 46 lonsdale and a 6 3/4 x 52 box-pressed perfecto. When the line got its widespread release in early 2023, it expanded to three sizes:
- Southern Draw Morning Glory Rothschild (4 3/4 x 50)
- Southern Draw Morning Glory Short Churchill (6 1/2 x 48)
- Southern Draw Morning Glory Diadema (6 3/4 x 52)
The blend remained the same, though, using a light-colored, Connecticut-grown claro wrapper, a Nicaraguan-grown habano hybrid, and a filler made up of Nicaraguan corojo 99 and criollo 98. When Morning Glory was announced, the company said that it used six tobaccos to create its gentlest blend, “resulting in an incomparable brown butter flavor somewhere between subtly toasty and elegantly nutty while remaining classically smooth, intentionally delivering a medium intensity that will be easy for most to enjoy.”
As with the majority of Southern Draw’s lines, Morning Glory gets its name from a flowering plant; in this case, the morning glory plant gets its name as it blooms in the early morning before closing in the mid-afternoon. Each bloom only opens once, as it produces seeds and the vine produces only new flowers for the following morning. “Each bloom, and in our case, each cigar is a symbol of hope and the fresh start we embrace with each new sunrise that is granted,” the company wrote in a press release.
Evening Primrose debuted later that month, also as a new regular production core line. It, too, had its initial launch at Cigars International before becoming widely available in early 2023, and used the same 6 1/2 x 46 lonsdale and a 6 3/4 x 52 box-pressed perfecto sizes for its debut.
The blend features a Mexican San Andrés maduro wrapper, a 7th priming Ecuadorian Sumatra binder, and a filler that is half Honduran, a quarter Nicaraguan, and a quarter U.S.-grown ligero. The company created the blend to offset the growing demand of the company’s Jacobs Ladder blend, saying that Evening Primrose is more flavor-forward and does not deliver the molasses sweetness of the broadleaf. “The Evening Primrose will likely be considered by most as more robust than the Jacobs Ladder, however, distinctly different, and equal to the task of placement in our growing family of blends,” the company wrote in a press release when the line was announced.
It debuted in the same three box-pressed sizes as Morning Glory:
- Southern Draw Evening Primrose Rothschild (4 3/4 x 50)
- Southern Draw Evening Primrose Short Churchill (6 1/2 x 48)
- Southern Draw Evening Primrose Diadema (6 3/4 x 52)
The Southern Draw Evening Primrose gets its name from one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring, which is known for only blooming in the evening and remaining open until early in the morning the following day.
While the lines are getting new vitolas, Robert Holt said that the original sizes are now available only as an exclusive to the company’s retailers who place a minimum order for them. “But we want our retailers to know that they have this option,” he noted.
The updated Morning Glory and Evening Primrose lines are scheduled to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Looking ahead into 2025, Holt shared that the company doesn’t expect to have a price increase next year as it transitions to this simple pricing model. He added that the Manzanita is slated for a return in the fourth quarter of 2025, moving to a 20-count box like Morning Glory and Evening Primrose, as well as getting a lower MSRP.
Patrick Lagreid
I strive to capture the essence of a cigar and the people behind them in my work – every cigar you light up is the culmination of the work of countless people and often represents generations of struggle and stories. For me, it’s about so much more than the cigar – it’s about the story behind it, the experience of enjoying the work of artisans and the way that a good cigar can bring people together. In addition to my work with halfwheel, I’m the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks during spring training, as well as for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury, the G-League's Valley Suns, and previously the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League. I also work in a number of roles for Major League Baseball, plus I'm a voice over artist. Prior to joining halfwheel, I covered the Phoenix and national cigar scene for Examiner.com, and was an editor for Cigar Snob magazine.
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