EGM Cigars Now Sold In The United States
Online cigar retailer Ettore Gabriele Moraschinelli has been selling his namesake cigar brand since 2022. Based in Switzerland near the Italian border, he started his business in 2017 and cultivated a clientele by selling Cuban cigars, but Moraschinelli’s customers noticed that he also offered an eye-catching Dominican brand called EGM, smartly monogrammed with his initials. As Cuban cigars became less available and more expensive, more and more people tried the EGM house brand. Three years later, the cigar developed an international following so strong that it prompted Moraschinelli to sell his cigars in the United States. Cuban cigars are no longer his focus, and the EGM brand now has U.S. distribution.
But the Swiss cigar retailer is adamant that he did not create EGM merely as a Cuban alternative. Rather, he wanted a brand that could stand on its own.
“We didn’t set out to be an alternative to anything,” Moraschinelli insists. “We set out to create our own benchmark for premium cigars, communicated in the most compelling way to date. Our cigars have managed to connect people across borders, classes and genders. They are enjoyed by thousands of people around the world via a network of retailers and distributors in 25 different countries.”
The United States is new territory for Moraschinelli and he plans on exhibiting at the next PCA trade show. His two brands, EGM and Empyrean, are distributed stateside by City of Palms, a cigar distributor headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, that specializes in smaller brands.
EGM is made in the Dominican Republic at the ABAM factory, located in Santo Domingo. It consists completely of Dominican tobacco and comes in 11 sizes—everything from petit pigtailed coronas (Petit Encantos) and Lanceros (Encantos) to Robustos, belicosos (Blecos) and Diademas. Sizes like Escudos address the modern smoker with heavier ring gauges of 54 and 56. Suggested retail prices span from $16.49 to $55.99 with most cigars falling in the $20 to $30 range.
Empyrean is a smaller series. Like the EGM core brand, it’s made solely from Dominican tobaccos and produced in the same factory, only the sizes are different and the tobacco is older—aged a minimum of five years, Moraschinelli says. Empyrean comes in three large-ring-gauge formats: Heraldos (5 1/8 by 55, $58); Praxedes (a belicoso at 5 3/4 by 57, $67.49); and Paraisos (6 3/4 by 52, $60.49). Empyrean is a more full-bodied brand than the core EGM line.
“Bringing EGM Cigars to the United States marks the beginning of a new chapter for our family business,” Moraschinelli tells Cigar Aficionado. “Seeing our cigars now on the shelves of U.S. retailers tells us that our vision resonates with smokers from all walks of life, wherever they are in the world.”
