My Father Cigars Blue

The packaging tells you where this one comes from before you get near the cellophane: blue and white, drawn from the Honduran flag. That's not decoration for its own sake. My Father Blue is the Garcia family's first major Honduran venture, and the inaugural release to come out of their new factory there, built after the development of Finca La Opulencia, the family's farm in the Talanga region.

José "Pepin" Garcia and Jaime Garcia blended it, and the construction reads as a deliberate showcase for Honduran leaf rather than a Nicaraguan blend with a new address. Honduran long-fillers grown from Corojo and Criollo seed on Garcia family estates sit under a Connecticut Broadleaf Rosado wrapper. The company puts it at medium to full in strength and full in body, with leather, cayenne pepper and wood layered against a subtle sweetness and touches of dried fruit.

The four sizes

The lineup runs to four vitolas, all traditional shapes, no figurados or oddities:

Those are manufacturer list prices, not what any particular shop charges. The Petit Robusto at $9.00 anchors the bottom of the range and the Toro Gordo at $13.00 the top.

Worth noting how the sizes are laid out. The Toro and Toro Gordo share a length — both 6 inches — and differ only in ring gauge, 54 against 60. With a full-bodied blend built on pepper and leather, that extra girth changes the ratio of filler to wrapper and, with it, how much of that Broadleaf Rosado sweetness comes through. The Robusto splits the difference at 5.25 x 52, and the 4.5 x 50 Petit Robusto is the short-format option for people who want the profile without the hour.

For a family that built its reputation on Nicaraguan tobacco, planting a farm in Talanga and opening a factory to work it is a substantial change of ground. Blue is the first thing to come off that line, which gives it a certain amount to prove about Honduran leaf under the Garcia name.