Cohiba Esplendido in Aruba

The final night of Caribbean Habanos Days ended late, and by the time we reached the hotel the heat had settled into something softer. A few of us stayed out on the terrace, letting the night wind down at its own pace.

A good friend of mine and winner of the Habanos World Challenge 2024 Aaron Ignacio handed me a Cohiba Esplendidos Gran Reserva with simple instructions, no photos, no posts, just smoke it, and I was happy to oblige. The Esplendidos Gran Reserva is a generous vitola, 7 inches long with a ring gauge of 47, making it feel like a real commitment. Truth is, I was doubting the cigar before I had even lit it. I’d spent years half convinced that Cohiba had become more symbol than substance, and I wasn’t eager to be proven wrong.

That doubt disappeared on the first draw. The cigar opened with a creamy, malted wheat, coffee profile that slowly built into a clean sweetness. This was followed by a freshness that kept my mouth watering. It never drifted into grassiness, never showed bitterness, never lost its balance.

What stood out was the consistency. No early surge followed by a fade, and no rough edges. The development was in flavour rather than strength, a gradual deepening that stayed controlled from start to finish. Even the aroma off the foot carried enough character to pull my attention back between draws.

I’ve smoked plenty of cigars in settings like that, warm nights with great company, and most of the time the cigar sits politely in the background, adding to the evening. This one didn’t. It became the centre of the moment without trying.

It smoked for around two hours, and when it finally came to an end it felt almost disrespectful to put the last inch into an ashtray. The twenty minute walk back to my Airbnb gave me time to sit with what I had just experienced. To put it in the simplest way possible, it felt like reconnecting with an old flame. This one cigar was making me re-evaluate the whole brand. I was no longer looking at Cohiba as an overpriced piece of marketing. Instead, I was starting to see it as the flagship brand it truly was, a brand that has earned its reputation. The Esplendidos Gran Reserva in Aruba felt like I was being introduced to the brand all over again; it felt like going back to that moment when I smoked my very first cigar.

Cohiba Behike 52, My First Cigar

In most groups there is one person who refuses the whole idea of smoking, and for a long time that was me. I had never tried anything, no cigarettes, no shisha, no hookah, no vaping, nothing, and I genuinely assumed it would stay that way. I did not wake up that day thinking a cigar would enter my life, it simply was not on the menu.

In July 2016 I went down to see family, and my uncle from Qatar was in the country. The weather was perfect and the garden was large enough for the children to disappear into their own world, jumping castles, running space, the kind of summer evening that feels unhurried. As it got later, the children drifted inside, and the adults settled into a smaller circle outside, a few chairs pulled together, cards in hand, the calm part of the day arriving.

Then my uncle brought out a hard case of cigars. At the time I did not understand what I was looking at, and I certainly did not think I wanted any part of it. He inspected one, then said, simply, if you want a cigar, take one. I surprised myself, because in that moment I decided to try one. I was not trying to make a point, I was not trying to impress anyone, I simply decided it was something I wanted to try.

I assumed I would take a few puffs and be done with it however my uncle sternly clarified. If I took a cigar, I finished it, no half measures, no pretending.

I accepted the terms, and asked which cigar I should take. He said, take the 52 and leave the 54, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. When I hesitated and asked what he meant by that, he looked slightly annoyed, reached into the case, took one out, and handed it to me with a firm, final sort of certainty, this one.

I already knew the mechanics because I had cut and lit cigars for him before, and I had watched him often enough to understand the rule that matters most, you do not inhale. I cut the cap, slightly more than I should have, and I lit it carefully until the foot was properly glowing.

The first puff changed everything. I was not retrohaling, I was not doing anything beyond taking a careful pull, and the cigar still tasted like the most perfect coffee I had ever had, creamy, aromatic, and almost unreal in how clean it felt. I remember looking up at my uncle mid draw, because the thought that hit me was simple and immediate, wait, this is what you have been enjoying.

There was no period of acquiring a taste. I did not have to build up to it, or persuade myself that it was good, because it was immediate, the first puff already tasted incredible.

It was the most perfect, creamy, aromatic coffee I had ever had. Beautiful swirls of flavour engulfed my senses and this was all without knowing how to retrohale the cigar.

Each puff on the cigar made me think about what I had been living without for all those years. This feeling of missing out swelled inside me like I had managed to live a whole stretch of my life with the door shut and never once wondered what was on the other side. I felt sheltered in that moment but also excited that I had found something that could bring this kind of joy. This one cigar quite literally changed my life.

That night ended, but the moment did not. I wanted to experience it again, and when I started buying cigars I looked to Cohiba to begin with because that is all I knew. I kept chasing that same profile and that same sense of astonishment. Most of what I found was good, but it was not that, and that is where the doubt began to creep in.

Cohiba, When The Doubt Set In

Over the last decade I have smoked a lot of Cohiba cigars. Some cigars with lots of age, and some straight off the retail shelf. Although there were some Cohiba cigars I smoked that were excellent, the enjoyment I was getting out of the brand started to drop. It was not that the cigars were suddenly bad, it was more that the gap between what I expected from the name and what I was actually experiencing kept narrowing in the wrong direction.

This was especially the case after the price increase, which led me to essentially write off the brand. It stopped feeling like a smart use of my money, because there were other Cuban cigars I could buy that gave me more pleasure for less. And if I am being honest, I started to feel like I was paying for the brand more so than the actual cigar.

As I smoked more broadly, and learned more about cigars in general, that idea hardened. I fell deeper into other Havana brands, and I found other favourites, I started to conclude that maybe Cohiba simply was not what it was cracked up to be. So I stopped reaching for Cohiba, not out of dislike, but because I no longer felt the need to chase the name, and that is what made this year such a surprise.

Cohiba, What Brought Me Back

In Havana in June, with some of the same friends from Aruba, I smoked a Cohiba Lanceros. In my opinion the classic line Cohibas are excellent cigars, the Robusto, the Espléndidos, and of course the Lanceros, however this one felt like every bit more of a Cohiba Lanceros than any other Lanceros I have ever smoked. It had the same clean Cohiba core I tasted in Aruba, but with a sharper sense of identity, the kind of cigar that makes you slow down and stay with it.

Then came a few cigars that kept proving the point in different ways. The Behike 58 was one I really wanted to dislike, mainly because the huge ring gauge is off putting to me, but it was an incredible cigar, and the expression of the blend was done so well that it gave me a great deal of enjoyment even if it did not take me back to that first cigar moment. The Behike 56 I smoked in Havana in September was truly remarkable too, smoked after dinner with friends, sitting outside listening to a live band, and me joking about hearing the same music over and over, and the cigar still held my focus because it was that good.

Back in London, after filming the Fidel Castro signed Bolivar anniversary humidor at C.Gars, I smoked a Cohiba Robusto, and it reminded me again why I keep coming back to the classic line. It does not need tricks, it simply delivers when it is on form, and it sits right in the part of the profile that I actually enjoy most.

The cigar that really closed the circle for me was the Cohiba 1966 Edición Limitada 2011, 6 and a half inches long with a 52 ring gauge, and it was kindly gifted to me by a friend while we smoked it over a livestream. It started off mild but deep with flavour, very similar to the Esplendidos in the way it carried itself cleanly, then it built much stronger as it went, and the finish moved into a pure chocolate note with heavier, bolder weight. For an evening cigar it was perfect, and even with that age on it, it still had the Cohiba heart, that particular flavour profile you do not find anywhere else.

Somewhere across these cigars I realised what had changed. I was not just enjoying Cohiba cigars again, I was looking forward to them. I finally understood what I like within the brand, for instance, I am not a huge fan of the Siglo series, and I tend to prefer the stronger Cohiba cigars. Understanding this took time and experience, however, once this was clear, the results started matching the expectation. The Esplendidos in Aruba brought back the feeling I once lost, however it was the months after that truly solidified my feelings for Cohiba.

Cohiba The Flagship

This year reminded me what Cohiba is meant to be at its best, and that comes with a simple point. If Cohiba is the flagship, then it has to be treated like the flagship every time, not just on the big releases, but on the standard production cigars too.

That starts with the cigars themselves. The quality control for Cohiba cigars needs to be second to none. With Cohiba, there is no room for excuses, because the whole point is that you are lighting the best that Havana can produce, and it should feel that way every single time.

It also means Cohiba should never become the kind of stock that gets left on shelves because the demand isn’t there and then gets moved through bundle forcing and tired retail games. Nobody wants to be told they can only buy a box of Behike if they also take a box of Siglo de Oro, and Cohiba should never be part of that conversation.

The way to avoid that is by correctly positioning Cohiba cigars. Each Cohiba release needs to be exciting, properly thought through, and intelligently placed in the range so the market understands why it exists, what it represents, and why it matters now. If that work is done properly, Cohiba does not become an afterthought in the sales process, and it does not need to be helped off the shelf, because demand is already there.

Cohiba should also feel rare in the way it matters, not as a gimmick, but as something protected. That means restraint, fewer releases with more intention, and cigars that justify the name every time, rather than lots of different Cohibas that blur together. When Cohiba is treated with that level of respect, people stop thinking about the price and start thinking about the moment, which is where Cohiba belongs.