_Are you ready for the "Devil’s Weed"?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A new cigar brand which takes its name from the Spanish Inquisition has debuted in Florida.

"Devil's Weed" is what some Spanish inquisitors called tobacco when Christopher Columbus returned with it from his first voyage to the New World. Nevertheless, it soon conquered Spain just as it had a hold on the natives met by Columbus' lieutenant, Rodrigo de Jerez, on October 28, 1492.

This new brand is marketed by the Molina Cigar Co. of Pensacola, Florida and is not as fierce as the name suggests. Made in the Dominican Republic in a five-year-old boutique facility known as La Fabrica Don Leoncio, it's mild-to-medium in body with an Ecuadorian-grown, Connecticut-seed wrapper and Dominican-grown binder and filler leaves.

Devil's Weed is offered in six classic sizes: Queen Bess (7 x 48), Raleigh (5 x 50), Colon (5 1/2 x 48 perfecto), Jerez (6 1/4 x 46 torpedo), Nicot (5 5/8 x 46) and 515 (5 1/4 x 48), all in boxes of 25. Suggested retail prices (not including local tobacco taxes) range from $4.99 each for the 515 up to $6.35 for the perfecto-shaped Colon (made by just two rollers by the way, each producing not more than 75 cigars per day).

Reflecting an old Cuban style, all cigars are tissue-wrapped rather than packed in cellophane. Thanks to the generosity of brand owner Luis Molina, we will soon have some Devil's Weed cigars as a "Register & Win" prize.