The cigar saga continues

I love a good story and I love a good story told well. In my view, that is the battle half won. And the cigar world is full of great origin stories that stretch back through the years, intricately tied to people and families. The way these stories are interwoven into everything from the how and where tobacco is grown, the vitolas and blends, the packaging and the cigar bands, etc is a rabbit hole I am willing to go down repeatedly. The stories of tobacco growers and the families that craft cigars are often epic sagas with craftmanship, passion and commitment at their heart.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a saga is a modern heroic narrative; a long detailed account; a dramatic and often complicated story or series of events.

While the company was established in 1995, the Dominican Republic-based De Los Reyes Cigars’ history in tobacco growing and cigar rolling and blending goes back over 160 years with the fifth and sixth generations of the family carrying the brand into the future. Augusto Reyes is the patriarch, his daughter Nirka Reyes is responsible for the factory, and Augusto’s younger brother, Leo is custodian of the plantations where the tobacco is grown.

In addition to producing private blends from different parts of the world, De Los Reyes have their own brands including Don Julio (named for third generation tobacco grower Don Julio Samuel Reyes Fermin), Patoro, Debonaire, Indian Motorcycle (the robusto maduro is a favourite of mine) and Saga.

Saga, in a way, represents and reflects the saga that is De Los Reyes, in particular the Saga Short Tales line, launched in 2016, of which they say:

“Many things compose a Saga: the Legendary stories, the generations long creations, lifetimes spent in search of a grail or simply perfection. They are the people’s favourites, the better known parts of the legacy. But for many aside of the legends and the popular creations, a Saga is as well the small events one enjoys in these special moments that do not come often.”

The first thing that strikes you about the Short Tales line is the packaging. Each comes in a striking box, of varying sizes, that looks like an actual old and worn book and would look as good on a bookshelf as it does in a humidor with the green “spine”. The first thing I did when shown the boxes was to line them up, in order of height, as I do with my books.

When you open a tomo (volume in Spanish), there is a booklet, also stained and designed to look old and worn, on the inside cover that tells you a story from De Los Reyes’ saga, a story of the tobacco, of the blending, of history.

There are seven tomos, each of a different blend, in the line, namely:

• Tomo I: Tales of High Priming – Released in 2016, the full bodied 4” by 58” vitola has a Nicaraguan (Jalapa) wrapper, Indonesian binder and a filler that is a blend of Connecticut Broadleaf and Dominican Republic tobacco.

• Tomo II: Tales of the Land : Cotui – Also released in 2016, the medium bodied 4 7/8” by 52” cigar has a wrapper from the Cotui region of the Dominican Republic, an Indonesian binder and a Dominican and North American filler.

• Tomo III: Labor Ipse Voluptas – Latin for ‘the pleasure is in the work itself’, the 2017 release is a 4 ¼ by 42” medium bodied cigar with an Habano Ecuador wrapper, San Vicente binder and blend of Piloto Cubano Mejorado Viso and Habano Brasil Viso filler.

• Tomo IV: Labor Omnia Vincit – Latin for ‘work conquers all’, the 2017 cigar is medium bodied, 4” in length and has a 34” ring gauge. The wrapper is Sumatra Ecuador, the binder San Vicente and a blended filler of Dominican Piloto Cubano Mejorado Viso and Pennsylvania Viso.

• Tomo V: Laudamus Abundancia Veteres – This translates to ‘we honor the richness of the time past’. It was released in 2017 as well, is 5” by 34”, considered medium bodied, with Ecuador Claro, the binder San Vicente and a blended filler of Dominican Piloto Cubano Mejorado Viso and Connecticut Broadleaf Viso.

• Tomo VI: The Sixth Element : El Tabaco – The 2018 release is 5 ½” by 58” and the Piloto Cubano Mejorado, Nicaragua and Pennsylvania filler is bound with a San Vincente filler and wrapped with San Andres tobacco.

• Tomo VII: Tales of the Land : Navarette – This pays homage to the key farm that Leo Reyes runs in Domincan Republic and was released in 2021. It is a 5” by 52” box-pressed robusto with a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper, Dominican San Vicente binder and an all-Dominican blend of Criollo, Havana Vuelta Abajo and Piloto Cubano.

In this instance, it is the packaging that has drawn me in and motivated me to work my way through the tales that De Los Reyes is telling. The saga has begun and, in the words of The Wu-Tang Clan, The Saga Continues.