Caldwell’s Lost & Found to Release Aged Cigars for Charity
A trio of aged, Dominican limited-editions, courtesy of the Lost & Found program, are expected to start reaching retailers at the end of the month. Lost & Found is a collaboration between Robert Caldwell, owner of La Barba Cigar Ltd., and designer Jaclyn Sears.
The program takes overstock that’s been aged, “lost,” forgotten or even unsold by out-of-business companies and releases the cigars to benefit a charity. The factories remain undisclosed and the anonymous cigars are repackaged under the name Lost & Found.
These releases are to benefit Camillus House, a non-profit organization based in Miami, Florida, that provides housing, medical care and substance abuse treatment for the homeless.
The first of these releases is Pepper Cream Soda San Andrés, a maduro-wrapped version of a previous release from 2013. This maduro cigar features a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, an Indonesian Sumatra binder and Dominican filler. The tobaccos were allegedly aged between two to seven years before the cigars were rolled in 2016.
Pepper Cream Soda San Andrés comes in four vitolas: Toro Fino Largo, measuring 6 3/4 inches by 48 ring gauge; Toro Extra, 6 1/2 by 52; Torpedo, 6 by 52; and Robusto, 5 by 52 . They range in retail price from $11 to $12, with total production consisting of 300, 10-count bundles of each size.
The second line is called Malditos Bastardos Habano, which is a follow-up to a previous release from last year and comes in three sizes: Toro, 6 by 52 ($12); Robusto, 5 by 50 ($11); and Corona Gorda, 5 1/2 by 46 ($10). Said to be produced in 2017, the cigars are made with Ecuador Havana wrappers and Dominican filler. While the majority of the line is made with an Indonesian binder, the Corona Gorda has a Dominican binder. Production is limited to 250, 10-count bundles of each size.
The third release, Buck15 Robusto, is a trio of 5 by 52 robustos. The first of the trio is Buck15 Navarette, which is made with only Dominican tobacco including a wrapper grown in the Navarette region from Havana Vuelta Arriba seeds. According to Caldwell, the cigars were rolled back in 2016.
Buck15 Habano is from a 2019 vintage with a Dominican Habano-seed wrapper, Dominican Criollo ’98 binder and filler from Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
Buck15 Cubra is composed of a Cuban-seed Brazilian wrapper, Dominican Olor binder and filler from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. The cigars were rolled in 2018.
All three Buck15 cigars retail for $11 each and will ship to retailers in bundles of 10 of each variety, with 250 bundles produced in total.
