Featured Cigars For Havana Cigar Festival
Cuba’s biggest cigar party will feature a pricey new Cohiba as well as a pair of new sizes for the relatively new Partagás Maduro brand. The cigars will be among the featured smokes for the 20th anniversary of the Habanos Festival, which will take place in Cuba from February 26 to March 2, 2018. The event attracts Habanos S.A. distributors from around the world, as well as retailers and casual cigar lovers.
The Cohiba cigar, a Reserva Cosecha 2014, will be presented at the opening cocktail party, which is slated for Monday, February 26 at El Laguito Protocol Hall. While there have been Cohiba Gran Reservas before (the Cohiba Siglo VI Gran Reserva, the first of Cuba’s Gran Reservas, which appeared in 2009) this is the first Cohiba Reserva in 14 years. In 2003, Habanos released the Cohiba Selección Reserva, a box-set of 30 cigars. Reservas, which sell for a considerable premium, are said to be made with three-year-old tobaccos. Gran Reservas are made with five-year-old tobaccos and are even more expensive.
No other details were given about the cigar.
The new Partagás Maduros will be passed out at the closing Gala dinner, which will be held on Friday night, March 2. The dark line extension launched in world markets in 2015 as a one-size line, the Partagás Maduro No. 1, which measures 5 1/8 inches long by 52 ring gauge. In a blind review in Cigar Aficionado, it scored 87 points.
There were no official details about the new sizes, but sources expected them to be the Partagás Maduro No. 2, a short pirámide, and the Partagás Maduro No. 3, a slim smoke.
The Habanos Festival—also known as the Festival del Habano—always includes a visit to tobacco farms in Pinar del Río, a day of factory visits in the Cuban capital of Havana and dinners or cocktail parties for much of the week. There is also a trade show as well as a series of seminars, and the contest to name the Habanos Sommelier of the year.
