Mighty Milestone has introduced two new premium cigar brands from JRE Tobacco: Aladino and Tatascan.
Aladino
Aladino, the flagship line from the relatively new JRE Tobacco Company, offers a classic old-fashioned cigar experience. It is made from Authentic Carojo tobacco grown in their own farm in Honduras using the original Cuban Carojo seed from over five decades ago. These cigars bring you back to the Golden Era of Cuban cigars from 1947-1961, featuring traditional sizes and a 60 x 6 ½ (Gordo) option for contemporary smokers.
The name Aladino comes from a vintage movie theatre in Danlí, Honduras, which the father-and-son team of Julio R Eiroa and Justo M Eiroa converted into a cigar factory. Julio crafted an old school “Authentic Corojo” puro blend for this special line, using Honduran Corojo tobaccos from their Eiroa Tobacco Farm in the Jamastran Valley.
Aladino cigars have received praise for resurrecting the Cubanesque profile of the famed Habanos from Cuba’s heyday. With a vintage appearance and a focus on premium tobaccos, these cigars offer a medium-plus body with flavours of black pepper, cayenne, medium-roast coffee, pretzel dough, cedar, cashews, and a buttery finish.
Tatascan
Tatascan is another brand offered by JRE, symbolized by a hat representing the “Big Boss” or “Head Honcho” in Honduras. This line includes everyday cigars as well as ones specifically for golfing, available in Connecticut and Habano wrappers. Tatascan also offers a value cigar line bundled for convenience.
Julio Eiroa
The list of living legends in the premium cigar industry seems to be getting shorter every year. Members of that generation of tough old men within the industry who began their careers on family farms or in factories in Cuba – and who were forced to start all over again in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Honduras or Nicaragua after the Fidel Castro-led Cuban government seized their companies and assets – have mostly passed away or are spending their remaining years enjoying a blissful retirement.
It was this generation who ensured that premium cigars could still be enjoyed in the United States after President John F Kennedy placed an embargo on Cuban goods in 1962. These were the men who took their knowledge and their passion further afield to start tobacco-growing operations for the manufacture of premium cigars and to establish cigar factories in other countries throughout the Caribbean – in many cases creating them completely from scratch – and they are the ones who built the vibrant cigar culture that exists today. In an industry that heralds heritage, tradition and lore, much honour is owed to this iconic, resilient and creative generation of which Julio belongs to.
If the name Eiroa sounds familiar, it’s because Julio is the father of Christian Eiroa, owner of the CLE Cigar Company. In addition, Julio and Christian were the former owners of the renowned Camacho Cigars brand.
Born in San Juan y Martinez in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province in 1938, Julio is one of the premium cigar industry’s largest living legends who is still actively involved in growing tobacco.
After selling Camacho to Oettinger Davidoff in 2008 for an undisclosed amount of money, Julio focused on growing tobacco at his Honduran farm, Rancho Jamastran, for eight years. When his noncompete agreement expired in 2016, the then-78-year-old established JRE with Justo to make premium cigars once again.
Today, JRE crafts three premium cigar lines –Aladino, Tatascan and Rancho Luna – which are steadily growing in popularity in both the US and internationally, and Julio shows no signs of slowing down, despite the fact that he is now 85 years old.
“My dad is one of the real patriarchs of the industry, though he doesn’t have quite the same recognition as others might have,” Justo says. “Part of the reason for that is that Dad rarely leaves Honduras and loves the farm and growing tobacco. Another reason is that we have always created brands that never had our last name as the brand name. If we had done that from the beginning, we might now have the same name recognition as some of the most renowned families in the cigar industry today.”
JRE
When it comes to JRE, Justo hopes that more people will recognize his father’s contributions to the premium cigar industry while they enjoy an Aladino, Rancho Luna or Tatascan cigar. JRE is a vertically integrated cigar and tobacco company that owns its own factory and farm in Honduras’ Jamastran Valley and has its own sales and distribution team based in Miami, Florida.
The company employs approximately 25 pairs of rolling and bunching teams who work in Julio’s Fabrica de Puros Aladino factory at Las Lomas, Jamastran, and it owns the oldest tobacco farm in Honduras, which is also one of the country’s largest farms. It consists of 700 acres, with over 400 acres under drip irrigation systems, and has more than 50 curing barns and 26 greenhouses, where Julio grows tobaccos such as Habano, Cameroon and Connecticut, as well as the tobacco that is most often associated with Julio: authentic Corojo.
With passion, persistence and strong worth ethic, the family-centred JRE have mastered the art of farming, aging and cigar manufacturing.
Together, Julio and Justo manage all aspects of the cigar growing and manufacturing – a crop-to-shop operation.
As the premier Corojo grower in the industry, Master Cigar Blender and famed tobacco grower Julio guarantee that all JRE brands will provide cigar connoisseurs the opportunity to enjoy an Authentic Corojo taste, the same as cigars from the 1960s.