Most Expensive Partagás Ever Making Its Way To Retail
The Partagás Serie E No. 2 Gran Reserva has been appearing sporadically around the world, and the next arrival for the new Cuban cigar is scheduled for Switzerland. The limited-edition cigars are set to launch next week on October 24 at La Casa del Habano shops around the country—and their price tags are considerably high.
The Partagás Serie E No. 2 is part of the Partagás Alphabet Series and wears a simple red band to distinguish it from the core Partagás line. It measures 5 1/2 inches long by 54 ring gauge and was introduced in 2011. According to worldwide Cuban distributor Habanos S.A., the Gran Reserva designation means that the cigars were made from aged, vintage-specific tobaccos, in this case, leaf from the 2015 harvest. Naturally, the extra age comes with significantly added cost. The Serie E No. 2 Gran Reservas are slated to retail for 275 Swiss francs each (about $306) or 4,124 Swiss francs per 15-count box, which works out to around $4,600. This is the most expensive Partagás ever commercially released.
The Reserva and Gran Reserva program started in the early 2000s. It consists of cigars that Habanos S.A. considers to be reference sizes in the Cuban portfolio rolled in extra-aged tobacco from a specific harvest or cosecha. Gran Reservas are purportedly rolled with five-year-old tobacco while Reservas are marketed as having tobacco aged for three years before production. Previous Partagás cigars released under this program include the Partagás Serie D No. 4 Reserva and the Partagás Lusitania Gran Reserva.
Switzerland is not the first country to get its allocation of Partagás Serie E No. 2 Gran Reservas this year, and it won’t be the last. While markets like Germany and Spain have already received the cigars, other regions such as the U.K. have yet to see them. If there are any left on the shelves of Spanish or German retailers, you might save yourself a few dollars. In Spain and Germany, the cigars have a suggested retail price of 210 euros (about $222)—a bargain by comparison, but still far more expensive than regular-production Serie E No. 2s, which retail for only 22 euros in Germany (about $23.25).
Only 5,000 boxes of the Partagás Serie E No. 2 Gran Reservas will be produced.
Read Next: Fuente Dinner Raises $335,000 For Cigar Family Charitable Foundation
