CAO Amazon Basin Returns For 2026
It’s a jungle out there and a piece of it can be added to your humidor. General Cigar Co. has shipped this year's release of CAO Amazon Basin, a limited-edition cigar featuring some Amazonian tobacco as part of its blend. The dark smokes went out to retailers earlier this month.
Introduced in 2014, CAO Amazon Basin is defined by a tobacco type called Bragança, which is found in the filler. Bragança is grown in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Its seedlings are planted a yard apart from one another, which means smaller yields than typical tobacco fields. After the tobacco is harvested, the leaves are rolled by hand into compact logs called carottes and then set aside for a six-month fermentation period. The carottes of tobacco are then loaded onto a canoe and brought down the Amazon River. Eventually, these logs find their way to the STG Estelí factory in Nicaragua to be made into cigars.
The rest of the five-country blend consists of a high-priming Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and fillers from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
CAO Amazon Basin comes in one size, a Toro measuring 6 inches by 52 ring gauge. A ropy twist of tobacco near the head gives the cigar a rustic touch. Retailing for $14.49 each, Amazon Basin ships in crate-like wooden boxes of 18 cigars.
