Felipe Gregorio El Pelo De Oro Duque (Box of 24)

• Length: 140mm
• Ring Gauge: 54
• Flavour: Medium-Full
• Wrapper: Pelo de Oro - Costa Rica
• Binder: Vuelta Abajo 1941 - Costa Rica
• Filler: Pelo de Oro - Peru
• Seed: Ancestral Cuban Pelo de Oro
• Origin: Dominican Republic

Some tobacco varieties survive because they're productive, hardy and obliging. Pelo de Oro survived because cigar makers couldn't quite bring themselves to forget how good it was.

Meaning “hair of gold”, Pelo de Oro is an old Cuban tobacco variety with a formidable reputation for flavour and a considerably poorer one for behaving itself in the field. Felipe Gregorio founder Philip G. Wynne became fascinated with ancestral Cuban seeds and has cultivated Pelo de Oro in Costa Rica, where the company's crop is grown at around 3,000 feet.

The Duque is the larger companion to the Robusto, measuring 5½ inches by 54 ring gauge. That extra girth gives Philip Wynne plenty of room for an unusual three-country interpretation of the old tobacco.

A Costa Rican Pelo de Oro wrapper surrounds Vuelta Abajo 1941 binder grown in Costa Rica, with Peruvian Pelo de Oro making up the filler. It's rated medium to full, and Felipe Gregorio describes its character through almond, sea salt and butterscotch — nutty and sweet with an intriguing savoury streak running through it. The cigar itself is refreshingly restrained. A pale golden-brown wrapper, natural veins and seams and a simple metallic-gold Felipe Gregorio Pelo de Oro band are about the extent of the decoration. The tobacco is very much expected to do the talking.

This listing is for the full box of 24 Duque cigars, giving you a decent supply of a blend that is quite unlike the usual Nicaraguan or Dominican fare. There's something rather appealing about a cigar maker going to such lengths to preserve a difficult old tobacco simply because he thinks it's worth smoking. Buying 24 at once merely saves you having to explain why you've come back for another one tomorrow.