The CAO cigar with the unusual Amazonian tobacco is back! This time the cigars have been aged for 2 years in an aging room lined with Spanish cedar.Called the CAO Amazon Basin Extra Añejo, these limited-edition smokes are a blend of tobacco that consists of an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and filler from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. That leaf of Brazilian filler—Brazilian Bragança—is what truly defines the cigar. According to General, seedlings for Bragança are planted in the Amazon soil a full yard apart from each other, resulting in half the yield of typical tobacco crops. Once harvested, the leaves are packed tightly into concentrated logs called carottes (similar to the condensed cylinders of andullo) where the tobacco undergoes six months of fermentation. The tobacco is then put onto a canoe and, like something out of a Joseph Conrad novel, paddled out of the jungle on the Amazon River.

Eventually, the tobacco makes its way to the STG Estelí factory in Nicaragua, where most CAO cigars are produced. According to the company, the extra age from the 2 year resting period has mellowed some of the blend’s nuances, while making others more pronounced. These special cigars are packed in usual rustic boxes, and a bit of rope-like tobacco is tied around each cigar serving as a natural band