New Benji Menendez Partagas Comes to Market
Celebrating 60 years in the cigar business, Benjamin "Benji" Menendez is marking the milestone with the new Benji Menendez Partagas Master Series LX, a 6 inch by 54 ring, limited-edition smoke made in the Dominican Republic by General Cigar Co.
A true industry veteran, Menendez has created cigars in nearly every cigar-producing country, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Brazil. Responsible for the U.S. development of the Partagas cigar brand, Menendez has access to General Cigar's large inventory of tobaccos, which allowed him to blend the new Master Series LX to his own personal specs. The blend consists of a dark Cameroon wrapper, Connecticut Havana-seed binder, and a filler combination of Dominican Piloto Cubano and Nicaraguan tobacco from both the mainland and the island of Ometepe.
Like the first Master Series release (which earned a spot in Cigar Aficionado's Top 25 cigars of 2009), the blend uses the same tobacco, but this year's thicker ring gauge naturally required different proportions.
"The blend is the same as the original Benji Menendez Partagas Master Series, but because it's a thicker ring gauge, we needed to give it more flavor, strength and taste," Menendez said. "We added more Nicaraguan tobacco to the blend to accomplish this. This is a very smooth cigar with a rich flavor which my team and I find particularly pleasing."
The LX, which translates to the number 60 in Roman numerals, comes packaged in soft-touch, matte-finish boxes of 18 and retails for $193.50 per box or $10.75 per cigar. They have already begun shipping and should be at cigar shops now.
