CAO Amazon Basin Returns For 2024
General Cigar Co. is going back to the jungle. More specifically, the Amazon rainforest. The company’s limited-edition CAO Amazon Basin made its return to market for the first time since 2022. The cigar began shipping to retailers yesterday.
Introduced in 2014, CAO Amazon Basin is defined by its Bragança tobacco as part of the filler blend. Grown in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, Bragança seedlings are planted a yard apart from one another, which results in smaller yields than are typical. After harvesting, the leaves are rolled by hand into dense logs called carottes which undergo a six-month fermentation. The carottes of tobacco are then loaded onto a canoe and paddled out of the jungle down the Amazon River. From there, the tobacco heads to the STG Estelí factory in Nicaragua, where CAO cigars are produced.
The rest of the cigar consists of a high-priming Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, a Nicaraguan binder and filler from Colombia and the Dominican Republic. According to the company, the blend is medium-bodied.
It comes in one size, a toro measuring 6 inches by 52 ring gauge, and has a suggested retail price of $14.29 per cigar. The cigar is not affixed with a traditional paper cigar band, but instead has a miniature rope of tobacco entwined around the upper portion, giving it a rustic appearance.
Further playing on the theme of rusticity, CAO Amazon Basin cigars come in roughly-hewn wooden boxes of 18 that resemble packing crates. Exact production numbers are not being disclosed but the company did state that this was a smaller production than 2022’s release of 6,000 boxes for the U.S. market.
