The King Street Emporium

Classic

By Avo

Avo Uvezian was born in Beirut in 1926, trained at Juilliard, and spent decades as a jazz pianist and composer. He co-wrote Strangers in the Night, the song most associated with Frank Sinatra, and spent years performing nightly at his restaurant in Puerto Rico while smoking custom blended cigars he kept on top of the piano. Those cigars, originally sold under the name Bolero in San Juan, were made by master blender Hendrik Kelner. The two men formalized their partnership in 1987, changed the name to Avo, and launched the brand at the Davidoff shop in New York City. Davidoff acquired distribution rights in 1995. Uvezian died in 2017 at the age of 91. The Classic is the foundational blend of the line and remains its most widely recognized expression. The wrapper is an Ecuadorian Connecticut shade grown leaf, a blond, silky tobacco grown under cloth tents that produces a mild, creamy character. The binder and filler are Dominican long filler tobaccos blended by Kelner. The overall profile is mild to medium with a smooth, consistent character that has made the Classic one of the most reliable everyday cigars in the premium Dominican category for nearly four decades. Rated 90 by Cigar Aficionado. Produced at the Oettinger Kelner Cigars factory in the Dominican Republic.