News & Notes
Toraño Family’s Blend D-042 from the Vault Now Ready
Fourth-generation cigar and tobacco producers, Toraño Family Cigar Company, has introduced its second Vault premium cigar. The new handmade Blend D-042 joins the top-rated Vault Blend A-008 which was launched in 2011.
This latest “Blend from the Vault” combines select Central American tobaccos, but with an unusual addition. According to President Charlie Toraño, “My father and I discovered a rare Pennsylvania leaf, while on a 1998 tobacco trip. Extensive experimentation revealed it to be an excellent enhancement to the filler tobaccos in Blend D-042, which we recorded in the blend book in 2004. The Pennsylvania tobacco’s flavor perfectly balanced the Nicaraguan filler combination. The original blend had a Sumatra Ecuadorian wrapper which was a popular choice at the time and widely available. In making some small adjustments to the original blend, we added a Habano Ecuadorian wrapper and the result was impressive. Blend D-042 is a powerful smoke, but with long and lingering sweet spice notes, it is very rounded and flavorful. It’s a fitting addition to our Vault line, complementing our runaway top-seller and widely distributed Vault Blend A-008.”
Vault Blend D-042 is available in three parejo shapes … a BFC (6″ x 60), Robusto (5″ x 52) and Toro (6″ x 50) … plus a Torpedo ( 6-1/8″ x 52).
In 1982, the Toraño Family started a “blend book” which meticulously documents the company’s creation and refinement of all their unique blends. As Toraño relates, “Our experience in tobacco, as recorded in the blend book, is our past, present and future in the world of exceptional premium cigars. Thus, the book has been securely sequestered in a bank’s safe-deposit box. Not all our blend recipes are worthy to take to market, but they are still considered special to us and irreplaceable. In the case of the D-042 blend, the recipe lay dormant since 2004 until now, before coming to life with the addition of the Habano wrapper from Ecuador which was not readily available back then.”
Vault D-042 is presented in cedar-lined boxes of 20 cigars, with the exception of the 6″ x 60 BFC, which comes in boxes of 18. The Vault boxes are made to look like the safe-deposit box which secures the Toraño blend book. The new Vault’s distinctive metallic red and gold bands are accompanied by a “Blend D-042″ in the footer band to set it apart from the original Vault blend A-008.
