The Southern Draw Cigars family has been working late into the evening for years with the AJ Fernandez Cigar Co. to add a new maduro core blend to the family of brands. A warm, dark cocoa colored wrapper of Mexico’s finest San Andrés tobacco adorns this deep blend, and with it, we offer our respects to the efforts of the true masters that made this specific tobacco and modern fermentation techniques available to small family-owned brands such as ours.
The Primrose
The latest core blend is being called EVENING PRIMROSE — the primrose is one of the first flowers to bloom in spring and its name comes from the Latin word ‘primus’, which most know means ‘first’. Although it’s an early season bloomer, it has a distinct habit of only revealing its flowers in the evening, and then remains open until early the following day. Our inspiration was derived from the Oenothera pallida or pale evening primrose with its satiny white flowers that leave visiting insects with a dust of lemon-yellow pollen on their bodies. The Boss Lady cultivates her garden as a haven to bees, moths, and butterflies to collect pollen and now, she can observe them working every evening, with our perfectly ripe, new blend in hand.
The Blend
This blend is being introduced to offset the growing demand of the JACOBS LADDER and its bold but approachable blend wrapped in Pennsylvania Broadleaf, the EVENING PRIMROSE is more flavor forward and does not deliver the molasses sweetness of the broadleaf that offsets its otherwise strong presence, rather offering more robust flavors and intense aromas that slowly but certainly transition as the tobaccos warm during the smoking experience.
Robert Holt noted:
“Through our AJF partnership we have continually achieved our lofty goal of consistency for each hand made cigar, blessed with exponential growth, our second goal of sustainability is now a key metric that demands extreme accuracy in planning and forecasting. We can currently produce approximately 1M cigars annually in the Rose of Sharon and Jacobs Ladder lines and we reached that plateau in 2021 and again in 2022, with that milestone comes the necessity of releasing the bookend MORNING GLORY and EVENING PRIMROSE blends!”
The blend of the Evening Primrose is described as:
- Wrapper: San Andrés Maduro, Mexico
- Binder: Sumatra 7th priming, Ecuador
- Filler: 50% Honduras, 25% Nicaragua, 25% Ligero USA
The company explained in more detail:
“The family was set on delivering a blend that was our “DRAW” on classic Cuban Maduros, those cigars we enjoyed for two decades during our corporate work-related lives in the Caribbean and Latin America. We have smoked many iterations of this blend; forming a family caucus before the final decisions were made. That exercise resulted in the bold and earthy profile with a dose of toasted malt like smoke that is heavily nuanced with only naturally developed flavors.
The EVENING PRIMROSE will likely be considered by most as more robust than the JACOBS LADDER, however, distinctly different, and equal to the task of placement in our growing family of blends. The Southern Draw Cigars family shares the EVENING PRIMROSE blend when we settle down from our long workday, now giving thanks publicly to our incredible partners.”
Sharon Holt added:
“Without you, we could not do what we do! Most know we are speaking of AJ Fernandez Cigar Co., but we would like to recognize Cigar Rings, Estelí, JMG Graphics, HumidifGroup USA, Boveda, Inc., Old Man Tobacco LLC and our loyal and highly valued retail partners and distributors, for your tireless support of this small family brand.”
Test Sizes
Southern Draw noted that there is only one way to enjoy this blend prior to our general release date, and that is via Cigars International where we have included two (one time only) test sizes, 6.5×46 Lonsdale and 6.75×52 Perfecto in a box pressed format which have been included in the 12,000, Create-Your-Own CIGARfest – 64 Cigar – Deluxe Cigar Package, being sold at each of their retail superstores between September 24th and October 29th, 2022, including seven events highlighting the SDC brand. https://www.cigarsinternational.com/page/cigarfest-2022/2044481/
Production Release
The EVENING PRIMROSE has been expertly box pressed and will be packaged in the company’s faceted 10 count boxes, identical to that of the MORNING GLORY, the Satin White color scheme of the boxes and multi-color cigar bands were carefully chosen by Sharon Holt, to reflect the refinement of the pale evening primrose blossoms as they reach for the light of the moon.
The EVENING PRIMROSE has an MSRP set at $13.49 – $14.99 per cigar – prices subject change based on local, state, and federal taxes and fees. This will be a regular production blend for the company, adding to their extensive portfolio with 180,000 cigars per year available to all valued retail partners in three sizes:
- Rothschild (4.75×50)
- Short Churchill (6.5×48)
- Diadema (6.75×52)
Presales for first adopters begins today, and 1st deliveries are expected in early Q1 2023
For general information about Southern Draw Cigars, a list of retail partners, cigar blends and reviews, please visit the at www.southerndrawcigars.com. You can LIKE, FOLLOW & TWEET them at
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