General Cigar Releases Punch Rare Corojo Aristocrat
For more than two decades, General Cigar Co. has released limited annual runs of its Punch Rare Corojo series, and this year, the company resurrected a size that’s meant to resemble a baseball bat. According to company lore, the new Aristocrat is based on an old shape that was originally made for cigar-smoking sports legends Red Auerbach and Art Rooney back when the Punch brand was owned by Villazon & Co. (General Cigar acquired Villazon in 1996.)
Tapered like a Louisville Slugger, the shapely figurado measures 6 1/8 inches long by 54 ring gauge at its fattest point. Its Ecuador Sumatra-seed wrapper covers a Connecticut broadleaf binder that holds together a blend of Nicaraguan, Honduran and Dominican tobacco.
The Punch Rare Corojo Aristocrat is made in Honduras at the HATSA factory, and is now available at tobacconists across the United States, with a suggested retail price of $9.99 per cigar. Aristocrats come in 20-count boxes.
“The Aristocrat size was almost a forgotten size,” says Ed Lahmann, senior brand manager for Punch. “Lucky for us, as we were looking back in the archives of Punch, we learned that this size hadn’t been made in decades. Further digging in the factory turned up 80 molds for this special size which is just what we needed for a limited-edition smoke.”
General Cigar Co. is a subsidiary of Europe’s Scandinavian Tobacco Group.
