Ashton Expanding La Aroma de Cuba Line
Ashton Distributors is adding a new line to its La Aroma de Cuba series, called La Aroma de Cuba Pasión. The six-size brand, described as medium to full in body, is rolled by My Father Cigars in Nicaragua, and sports a Cuban-seed cover leaf grown under shade.
“It’s all about the wrapper,” says Sathya Levin of Ashton Distributors. The wrapper he’s describing is grown by the Garcia family, owners of My Father Cigars, on their 300-acre farm in Namanji, a Nicaraguan town about 45 minutes east of Estelí. The farm is a productive one for the Garcias, who also grow wrapper for their celebrated Flor de las Antillas brand on the same property. (That wrapper is sun grown, rather than shade grown.) The rest of the cigar is entirely Nicaraguan.
“This is a project we have been planning with the Garcia family for years,” says Levin. “We’ve had the trademark for Pasión registered since 2016, but we didn’t want to use it on just any cigar. We wanted to wait until the shade-grown wrapper from Namanji was ready. We’ve been developing the blend with Pepin [Garcia] and Jaime [Garcia], and tinkering with the details for the last two years. It’s a special wrapper and a special blend—we’re very excited.”
La Aroma de Cuba Pasión comes in six sizes, in a mix of the traditional and the modern: Corona Gorda (5 5/8 inches by 46 ring, $9.50), Robusto (5 1/2 by 50, $10); Marveloso (6 by 52, $10.75); Churchill (7 by 49, $10.85); Box-Pressed Torpedo (6 1/8 by 54, $10.95) and Encanto (6 by 60, $11.50). Each of the sizes are packed 25 to the box.
La Aroma de Cuba is a large brand with six varieties, including La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor and La Aroma de Cuba Edicion Especial. Ashton hopes to get the first shipments of the new Pasión cigars out in late August.
