Size: 6 x 54
Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf

E.P. Carrillo Cigars is back with a limited-edition line honoring the creation of the United States. The new smoke, called E.P. Carrillo Pledge of Allegiance 2023, combines the names of two of the company’s highly rated cigars, Pledge and Allegiance, and harkens back to the day when a young Ernesto Perez-Carrillo arrived in the United States from San Cristobal, Cuba.

Perez-Carrillo was only seven years old when he boarded the PanAm flight from Cuba to Miami. It was 1959, and before his eighth birthday. He flew alone, and dressed in a suit, hat and tie.

“Ernesto came to the States with the American dream—we want to highlight this idea and patriotism,” says Lissette Perez-Carrillo, Ernesto’s daughter.

Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, age seven, upon his arrival in Miami from San Cristobal, Cuba, in 1959.

Keeping with the American theme, the blend is heavy on American tobaccos. The wrapper is broadleaf grown in Connecticut, the binder is Connecticut-seed Ecuador and the filler is a mix of tobaccos from the United States, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The bands are resplendent in Americana, richly rendered in a patriotic palette of red, white and dark blue with an arc of white stars on the top.

The cigars will be released in the middle of June, and limited to only 1,776 boxes, a nod to the year the United States signed the Declaration of Independence, breaking away from Great Britain.

“It is a first-time blend for me,” says Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. “I enjoyed working with these American tobaccos very much.”

- information brought to you by Cigar Aficionado