The King Street Emporium

Baccarat

By Baccarat

The sweetened cap was a Cuban tradition that largely faded after the revolution scattered the island's cigar makers. Baccarat kept it alive. The brand traces its name to a legal dispute: the original cigar was sold under the Carl Upmann label by American Tobacco Company, until a 1978 lawsuit with the Cuban H. Upmann brand forced a rename. Industry veteran Sal Fontana had been selling that cigar for years before eventually joining Camacho Cigars in Honduras, where he spent the rest of his career as the brand's self-described consigliere. In 1989 Julio Eiroa relaunched Baccarat under Caribe Imports with a fully Honduran blend. When Davidoff acquired Camacho and its Rancho Jamastran factory in 2008, Baccarat came with it. The Natural is built on Cuban-seed long-leaf filler grown in the Jamastran Valley, bound with Mexican leaf, and finished in a Connecticut shade wrapper grown from Connecticut seed in Honduras. A glucose-sealed cap delivers a faint sweetness from the first draw, a holdover from the Cuban cigar tradition the brand has never abandoned. Mild in body, consistent across a wide range of sizes, and handmade at the Diadema Cigars de Honduras factory in Danlí.