On Episode 243, we welcome honored to welcome one of the true icons of the cigar industry, Tim Ozgener. Tim’s family founded the legendary CAO brand and it changed the cigar industry as we know it. Tim stepped away from the business 12 years ago, but this year he has come back – with an […]
As far as the brands of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) go, we are covering them by their distribution arms focusing specifically on General Cigar Company and Forged Cigar Company. Today we turn our attention to the brands falling under General Cigar. As many know, STG was one of the “Big Four” that decided to withdraw […]
This July, CAO will unveil the CAO BX3. BX3 represents “three times the Brazilian tobaccos” with blends focusing on the tobaccos from the growing regions of Northeastern Brazil. The BX3 follows the CAO CX2, MX2, and LX2 releases. The BX3 features a Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper, Brazilian Arapiraca binder, and fillers from Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, […]
CAO recently released their second installment of the Arcana line called the Firewalker. Following the successful Arcana Mortal Coil, the Firewalker gets its name from the unique fermentation process called chincagre. This process from the region of Masatepe is where they take the tobacco pilons and bury them deep in the volcanic soil for two […]
General Cigar has announced CAO Borealis, a new exclusive release for the Canadian market. In addition to being an exclusive to all of the provinces of Canada, it also will be a cigar to feature Canadian-grown tobacco in its blend. The Canadian tobacco comes from Southwest Ontario near the Great Lakes where General Cigar says […]
General Cigar has announced a new limited edition cigar under its CAO brand known as CAO Pilón Añejo. It’s a cigar that follows the original CAO Pilón in that it uses tobaccos fermented in circular-shaped pilóns. Fermenting in circular pilóns is an old Cuban technique. Most tobacco is fermented by arranging tobacco in large rectangular […]
Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) has announced that Rick Rodriguez, blender/ambassador of CAO, will be retiring from the company on April 29, 2022. Rodriguez joined General Cigar in January 2000 as a sales representative in Florida. In 2005, he was selected by the late Edgar Cullman, Sr., to participate in a rigorous cigar master training program […]
General Cigar Company has announced the second installment of its limited-edition CAO Arcana Series, the CAO Arcana Firewalker. The CAO Arcana Series highlights old-world processing methods The Firewalker was inspired by an aging method known as Chincagre. In this case, this aging method was applied to the Nicaraguan-grown filler tobacco. General Cigar describes this method […]
General Cigar Company has announced that the CAO Amazon Basin, a limited edition cigar first released in 2014, is making a return. The cigar has been one of the most popular limited edition cigars released by General. The Amazon Basin blend incorporates a rare/low yield of tobacco called Brazilian Braganca. Back when we initially reported […]
Agile Cigar Reviews are cigar assessments where we use a lightweight, shorter format. These will never take the place of our comprehensive reviews. They are only used on blends we have previously assessed. This might be a blend we are re-scoring or giving a score for the first time. It might be a blend we […]
