Flores y Rodriguez Connecticut Valley Reserve Coming To Retailers

Source from:  Cigar Aficionado 11/19/2015

PDR Cigars has a dark new brand coming to market this month, and it's slated to hit retailers right around Thanksgiving. The cigar is called Flores y Rodriguez Connecticut Valley Reserve, and as the name suggests it's wrapped in a dark Connecticut broadleaf maduro wrapper that's grown in the United States.

"I've worked a lot with San Andrés [wrappers] in the past," Abe Flores, owner of PDR Cigars told Cigar Insider. "This time I wanted to do something more nuanced but still have some great body to it. The Connecticut broadleaf just gave it a ton of flavor with the right amount of weight. It's a very difficult wrapper to work with, and you lose a lot of it in production, but it's a part of the process with broadleaf. In the end it was worth it."

Underneath the broadleaf wrapper sits two binders: an Ecuadoran Corojo and Nicaraguan Habano from the Jalapa region. Fillers are composed of Dominican Corojo, Criollo '98 and Nicaraguan tobacco grown in Condega.

Made at the PDR Cigars factory in the Dominican Republic, the Flores y Rodriguez Connecticut Valley Reserve will ship in four sizes: Robusto, at 5 inches by 52 ring gauge; Gran Toro, 6 by 54; Belicoso 5 1/2 by 54; and Figurado, 6 1/2 by 52. The cigars will retail $16 to $19, making them the most expensive line in the PDR Cigars portfolio.

The Flores y Rodriguez Connecticut Valley Reserve comes in long, maple wood boxes of 15, and is expected to be on store shelves by the end of the month.

Recently, Abe Flores was accepted as a member of ProCigar, an association of esteemed cigarmakers whose goal is to educate enthusiasts and retailers on the importance of the cigar industry in the Dominican Republic. Enditem