Trinidad Cigars

The Trinidad brand is named after one of Cuba's most beautiful cities, the beautiful 16th Century city of La Santísima Trinidad. While the Cohiba is also made in the same El Laguito factory in Havana, Trinidad is produced only to its own particular recipe of tobaccos. Trinidad is packaged in an 'unusual' quantity of 24 cigars and in cabinets of 50. According to Adriano Martínez, a former executive of Habanos SA the Trinidad brand was first produced in 1969.

Little was known of the brand until in a 1992 interview published in Cigar Aficionado, Avelino Lara, the former manager of the El Laguito factory, reveled that Trinidad was an ultra-exclusive brand that only Fidel Castro was authorized to hand out as diplomatic gifts. In 1995, Cigar Aficionado hosted the Dinner of the Century in Paris, France, where, among other rarities, the guests became the first outside of diplomatic circles to taste Trinidad cigars.

In February 1998, the Trinidad brand was released for public consumption at an opening ceremony in the Habana Libre Hotel in Havana. The initial release was only in one size: the Fundador. Though Martínez and others maintain that the blend did not change in the transition from a diplomatic gift to a mass-marketed cigar, the size did. The diplomatic Trinidads only came in one size, that of a Laguito No. 1 (the same as the Cohiba Lancero). The Fundador instead comes in a new size with a factory name of Laguito Especial, the same length as a Laguito No. 1 but slightly larger in diameter.

In addition to the Fundadors in November 2003 at a black tie dinner hosted by UK importer Hunters & Frankau at the Hilton Park Lane in London, England, three new sizes were debuted for the Trinidad line: the Coloniale, the Reyes, and the Robusto Extra.

All four sizes are, of course, Hand-Made and are suitable for presentation, even to the diplomats of the world.