E.P. Carrillo Adds Maduro Blend To Essence Series
E.P. Carrillo is expanding its Essence series with a dark smoke called E.P. Carrillo Maduro. The new blend is going to ship at the end of this month or the beginning of June.
E.P. Carrillo Maduro has a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, a binder from Honduras and filler tobaccos from Nicaragua. “I’m very excited about this particular blend,” says Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, who makes the cigars in the Dominican Republic at Casa Carrillo. “It’s different from anything I’ve done before in a maduro.”
It comes in three sizes. The Robusto measures five inches long by 50 ring gauge, and has a suggested retail price of $9.25. Toro is 6 by 52, and sells for $10 and the 6-by-60 Gordo has a $10.75 price tag.
The cigars are packed in wooden boxes, each with 24 cigars. While this is technically part of the company’s Essence line, the word doesn’t appear on the box or the band. The boxes have large red-and-black bands along the left side that emphasize the word “maduro.”
The company intends to further expand the Essence line, ultimately creating a six-blend series within the next three years, each of them distinguished by their wrappers. The first was Sumatra, which debuted at the PCA tradeshow and will ship at the same time as Maduro.
The Sumatra and Maduro cigars have some similarities: each is round, intended to be medium in body, and contains Honduran tobacco, something E.P. Carrillo doesn’t often use in a cigar blend.
Later this year, E.P. Carrillo will release the Honduras version of Essence, followed by Connecticut, Nicaragua, and Cameroon blends in subsequent years.
