La Bohéme Returns Under Aging Room Banner
La Bohéme is being revived—not the Puccini opera, but the cigar—and it will be branded as another line of Aging Room when the curtains go up in January.
When La Bohéme debuted in 2014, it was made in the Dominican Republic by Jochy Blanco and consisted mostly of Dominican tobacco. Eventually, brand owner Rafael Nodal retired the line, but he never completely forgot about it. Now, a decade later, Nodal serves as vice president of product capability for Altadis U.S.A. and is bringing back La Bohéme, but it isn’t going to be exactly the same production.
As the name suggests, Aging Room La Bohéme is a sub-brand of the larger Aging Room series (the original La Bohéme was its own line). It’s no longer produced at Blanco’s Tabacalera Palma, but made in Nicaragua by A.J. Fernandez, a longtime collaborator with Nodal. And it’s an entirely new, stronger blend of all Nicaraguan tobacco, save for the wrapper, which is a hybrid of Broadleaf and Habano seed grown in Connecticut. Like a talented tenor making his stage debut, this is the first time that Altadis or Nodal have used this wrapper leaf.
The Aging Room La Bohéme will come in the same four sizes as the previous La Bohéme brand: Mimi, measuring 3 1/2 inches long by 46 ring gauge ($17.90); Pittore (5 1/8 by 52, $23.92); Poeta (5 3/4 by 54, $24.52) and Musico (6 1/4 by 60, $24.90). The cigars will come in 20-count boxes and will be adorned with vintage, pre-Revolution bands similar to the original release.
“The original La Bohéme was introduced in 2014 as a tribute to the cigars my grandfather smoked in the small park near our home in Cuba,” Nodal says. “The new Aging Room La Bohéme is a look to the future, featuring bolder flavors and unique tobaccos. It represents three of my passions: music, cigars and Cuba.”
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