Oscar Valladares came to InterTabac with three new cigars for the European market, The Oscar Maduro, My Way by Bayron Duarte and a box pressed new blend under the name of his first brand, 2012.
“I started with 2012 in January, but now I have it in three more sizes, Short Robusto, Torpedo and 6×60,” he says.
The new blend has fillers from Nicaragua and Honduras and the wrapper is a Corojo Sungrown from Honduras. He made the blend in 2016 and it’s completely different from the original 2012 which was made with tobacco exclusively from the Copán region in the north of Honduras.
“The original blend is important to me. It’s nostalgic and it was the start of Leaf by Oscar, so I didn’t want to touch it.”
Leaf by Oscar is his most successful cigar to date and created a big buzz when it came out as it had a leaf covering the cigar instead of cellophane, which was the Mayan way. This turned out to be a little confusing for some people who ended up smoking the packaging. With My Way by Bayron Duarte he’s ready to confuse people again.
“It’s an ugly cigar. We put on the wrapper in reverse to make it look ugly. The goodness is inside, as I try to explain to people. I see so many good looking cigars in pretty wrappers in the market that taste ok, but not more. I try to do something different all the time, so on My Way by Bayron Duarte you feel the veins and it looks ugly, but when Leaf by Oscar came out people thought that was ugly too. I want to see if I can get people to smoke it.”
My Way by Bayron Duarte comes in four sizes, 4×60, 6×54, 6×60 and 7×66.
“It’s a limited edition. We’re making 1000 boxes of each size and after that it’s not coming back on the market.”
