A New Saint Luis Rey With Extra-Old Tobacco
Three years ago, Altadis dusted off its sleepy Saint Luis Rey line and gave it new life with the Carenas blend. Now, a new version is shipping to retailers and according to brand owner Altadis U.S.A., the tobaccos in this blend are even older.
The Saint Luis Rey Carenas Ultramar is made in Honduras at the Flor de Copan factory using an “extra-aged blend of tobaccos,” Altadis says, while not specifying exactly how much older these tobaccos are than the ones used in the Carenas line. There’s another difference in the blend besides the age; Ultramar’s wrapper and binder are both from Nicaragua, and the filler is a combination of Honduran and Nicaraguan leaf, compared to the original Carenas blend, which consists of Honduran filler and binder and Nicaraguan wrapper.
Carenas Ultramar comes in four sizes: Corona, measuring 5 5/8 inches by 45 ring gauge ($9.10); Robusto, at 5 by 50 ($9.64); Toro, at 6 by 52 ($9.75) and a 6-by-60 Magnum ($10.69). All come in 20-count boxes with a Spanish galleon depicted on the inner lid, which plays to the brand’s theme (ultramar means “overseas” in Spanish).
“The transport of tobacco in the ships destined for Spain from the New World, was the first known form of aging,” says Gabe Diaz, brand manager for Altadis U.S.A. “The original Saint Luis Rey Carenas parallels how the tobacco would have tasted in the New World. The Saint Luis Rey Carenas Ultramar represents the extra-aged tobacco that would have been smoked upon the shipment’s arrival in Spain.”
See a future issue of Cigar Insider for a vertical brand tasting of the Saint Luis Rey Carenas Ultramar.
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