PCA 2024: Macanudo

The 2024 Premium Cigar Association (PCA) Trade Show saw the return of General Cigar’s Macanudo brand. It had been five years since Macanudo had a presence at a Trade Show, but they were back on the big stage thanks to General’s return to PCA. Over the past few years, Macanudo has certainly seen quite a bit of innovation. This was first seen with the Inspirado series, but things have gone to another level in the past couple of years. Perhaps there was no better example of this than the Macanudo Emissary España launch, a cigar incorporating tobacco from Spain. The brand also continues to collaborate with the Flint Knoll winery for the Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll.

Emissary is a new subbrand under Macanudo with a theme around European sophistication. The first release in this series is the Macanudo Emissary España, named because it has tobacco from Spain in the filler. The Spanish tobacco comes from a farm near the town of Riolobos, Spain, located in the West-Central region of Spain. In addition to the Spanish tobacco, the filler also incorporates several other filler tobaccos, including five-year-aged Dominican Piloto, six-year-aged Nicaraguan, and five-year-aged Colombian tobacco. The binder is a six-year-old Nicaraguan leaf from Condega. Finally, the España is finished with a five-year-aged Connecticut-grown Broadleaf Claro wrapper and presented in 16-count boxes. The cigar comes in four sizes: Robusto, Toro, Churchill, and Perfecto. The Emissary España has already landed on shelves. It has a price point between $14.99 and $17.99. Other European tobaccos will be used for future releases of the Emissary series.

Meanwhile, Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll was showcased at a separate station within the General Cigar booth. Last year, Macanudo Flint Knoll landed as the #6 Cigar of the Year on the Cigar Coop Countdown.

In other news, several Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) brands have collaborated with various spirits companies over the past few years, some utilizing barrel-aged tobacco. In 2022, Macanudo became one of the STG brands using barrel-aged tobacco for its Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll. For this project, Macanudo engaged with the Napa Valley-based winery Flint Knoll. Compared to other STG barrel-aged collaborations, this project was unique because Macanudo collaborated with a winery rather than a distillery. Additionally, the tobacco aging barrels used were made of French Oak and were previously used in aging Flint Knoll’s single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon.

The barrel aging process used for the Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll is consistent with what has been used across the other STG barrel-aged collaborations. This aging process involves putting the tobacco that is being used as the binder leaf into the barrels. For the Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll, a proprietary Connecticut Broadleaf leaf was aged in the wine barrels. In addition to the Connecticut Broadleaf binder, the Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll features a filler blend of Brazilian Mata Fina, Dominican Olor, Dominican Piloto Cubano, and Nicaraguan Jalapa. The wrapper on the cigar is an Ecuadorian-grown Connecticut Shade leaf.

There have been two iterations of the Macanudo Estate Reserve Flint Knoll: No. 1 and No. 2. The No. 1 and No. 2 were released in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The tobaccos incorporated were identical, but the difference involved the wine barrels used to age the Broadleaf. The No. 1 used wine barrels from a 2018 vintage, and the No. 2 used wine barrels from a 2019 vintage. The different vintages bring out different nuances with the Broadleaf tobaccos that were aged in them.