There is Gold in the Cigar stores of London if you ask the right people.

If you visit London Cigar stores as we do on the Cuban Cigar Walk London, you will meet some of the most charming and knowledgeable people in the cigar business. Put yourself in their hands and revel in the delights you can discover.

When I recently visited small but wonderfully stocked cigar store in Selfridges on Oxford Street I met Magali who runs the store. Magali comes from Cuba and a trip to see her is always a pleasure because she knows so much about cigars.

  

We talked cigars for a while, and I always learn so much because Magali, like so many of her colleagues, is so giving of her wealth of knowledge and experience.

After a while we moved on to discussing Trinidad cigars which I had been introduced to by Edward Sahakian of Davidoff in Jermyn Street. 

Magali said that if I enjoyed the Trinidad Reyes I should really I search out the original gold banded ‘Fundadores’ made at the famous El Laguito factory. She said that in her opinion the taste and the blend were fantastic and that this was a cigar worth searching out if there were still some around. 

The old gold band with it's simple type can easily be differentiated from the current 'triple T' band design (see below)  

I headed off and after a hunting around a few stores I found my way to JJ Fox in St James’s street where I found in the walk in humidor a box of Fundadores that they were selling as singles. 

This is one of the great delights of London cigar stores, you can find some wonderful rare, aged cigars which you can sample rather than having to invest a weeks wages to buy a whole box only to find that they are not to your taste.

I was told by Jean at Fox that ‘those have got some real age on them because they aren’t a popular size, no one smokes them these days’. The bottom of the box had a date code for 1998 and the band and the code confirmed that they were from the El Laguito factory. I had struck gold, twelve year old gold!

A friend and I bought one each and retired upstairs to the sampling lounge to give them a proper sampling and what a great hour and a half that was.

To start with they smell just sensational and if you compare them with their younger brothers and sisters they are a good shade darker.

They are a truly wonderful cigar.  I was counselled to take my time and smoke slowly. The narrow ring gauge means the cigar can get over heated if you drawer like a much larger cigar. The first third was very light but as I moved into the second half it started to get more spicy and complex. This is by no means a strong cigar but it has all the subtlety and delights of the smaller Reyes but if you have the time it is so much more rewarding.

Having tracked down the cigar and enjoyed it so much I went back to some notes which Simon Chase of Hunters & and Frankau had sent me after a Trinidad tasting at Boisdale.  With his permissions I have included them here (shown in italics)   

Trinidad is named after the beautiful,  16^th Century city of La Santísima Trinidad, which lies on Cuba’s south coast and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The History of Trinidad

The Early days

Trinidad cigars were first released to the public at the beginning of 1998 in one size only, the Fundadores or Founders (7 ½”/192mm x 40 ring gauge). However, long before that Trinidad had earned a worldwide reputation amongst aficionados as Havana’s mystery cigar.

Production started in 1969 at El Laguito, the Cohiba factory, but only very small quantities were made exclusively for the Cuban Council of State, which gave them as gifts to foreign diplomats and visiting dignitaries.

These cigars, known unofficially as Trinidad ‘Diplomats’, were thinner than the Fundadores, in fact they were standard Laguito No. 1s like the Cohiba Lancero, but contained a very different, fuller flavoured, tobacco blend.  They remained completely unknown outside diplomatic circles until September 1992 when their existence was revealed in the first issue of the American magazine, Cigar Aficionado.

From then on Trinidads became the Holy Grail of cigar enthusiasts, if only because they were virtually impossible to obtain.  A few were tasted and some were auctioned for the Cuban Health Service in boxes signed by Fidel Castro at Cigar Aficionado’s Dinners of the Century in Paris in 1994 and London in 1995.  Then, in 1997, some of the diplomats, who had been privileged to receive them, tested their price at auction.  They were well rewarded when boxes of 25 Trinidad Diplomats sold first for £7,000 each and then, later in the year, for £10,000 each – that’s £400 per cigar!

Soon afterwards the Cuban industry decided that, if people would pay so much for Trinidads, the time was ripe to launch the cigar to the public.  A team was assembled at El Laguito under the factory’s Director, Emilia Tamayo, to prepare Trinidad for the market.  Its work was completed in November 1997 and the brand was launched in Havana in February 1998.

The Master Blender and his Blend

The key member of Tamayo’s team was Raúl Valladares, who is a Master Blender of tobacco.  In fact he is known as the ‘Maestro de Maestros’ (Master of Masters) in the Cuban cigar industry.

Raúl took the original essence of the Trinidad Diplomat and softened it to produce a blend that concentrated on the aromatic fragrance of Cuban tobacco with a distinct medium flavour.  Above all it has an approachable taste designed to please both the novice and seasoned smoker alike.

The Launch of Three New Sizes

At the end of 2003 three new sizes with a newly designed band were launched at a dinner hosted by Hunters & Frankau and Habanos SA at the London Hilton.  These were: the Robusto Extra (6 1/8”/155mm x 50 ring gauge), the Coloniales (5 ¼”/132mm x 44 ring gauge) and the Reyes (4 3/8”/110mm x 40 ring gauge).  All these sizes, like the Fundadores, are unique to Trinidad and cannot be found as standard sizes in any other Havana brand.

Raúl Valladares attended the dinner to ensure that the same blend he had created for the Fundadores was faithfully matched in all the sizes.  He was satisfied with the result.

The Move to Pinar del Rio

By the end of 2004 demand for Trinidad had outstripped the production capacity at El Laguito.  It was decided that the manufacture of all the brand’s sizes should be transferred to the Francisco Donatien factory in the heart of Pinar del Rio City.

It is here that Trinidad is made today within a few miles of the famous Vuelta Abajo plantations where all its tobaccos are grown.

Brand Notes - The Distinctive Pigtail

All sizes of Trinidad are distinguished by a twist of the wrapper on the cap, as is found on the Cohiba Lanceros and Coronas Especial as well as the Montecristo Especial and Especial No. 2.  However, Trinidad is the only Havana brand where all sizes have this distinctive pigtail.

So having learned so much about these great cigars and having smoked one it was about time to get a few for my humidor. Luckily a Facebook and Cigar Forum chum from Dublin also shares my passion for these great cigars and he managed to not only find a full box of 24 from 1998 but also a third person to split the box. 

Since then I have seen that two boxes were sold in the C.gars auction at a very good price (for the buyer). These great cigars are out there and if you go to the right stores and ask the right questions there is something old and magical waiting for you to try. You too can strike gold!

I must again thank Simon Chase of Hunters & Frankau for allowing me to use his notes on the history of Trinidad and also to Yiorgos Manesis for the wonderful pictures of our box before it was ‘split’