Throughout the cigar aficionado community Plasencia cigars are known as some of the best to be rolled in the New World.  Over the years a great many brands have employed the services of the world-class torcedores working at the Plasencia factories to create their cigars, before the family decided to release some with their own name proudly emblazoned on the boxes.  That family is now in its fifth generation of cigar makers, and is still as dedicated to quality and craft as their ancestor was when he stared the company.

While the Plasencia farms and factories of today are to be found in Nicaragua, it was in the fabled Vuelta Abajo region of Cuba that the association between the family and fine tobacco cultivation was born.  Don Eduardo Plasencia left the Spanish Canary Islands in 1865, along with many of his countrymen, to seek prosperity and opportunity in Cuba.  He began to grow tobacco to great success, and fewer that 30 years later his nephew, Sixto Plasencia Juares, had opened a second farm at Corojal.  Sixto’s sons – the third generation of the family to continue the legacy – began to export tobacco to larger companies in the 1920s, and went from strength to strength right up until 1963.  It was then that Castro’s nationalisation of the industry took full hold, forcing the entire Plasencia family to flee to Mexico with whatever possessions they could carry.  Like so many other Cuban tobacco dynasties, they spread out through the Caribbean before eventually settling in Nicaragua.

In 1965 – exactly 100 years since his grandfather planted his first seeds in Cuba – Don Elder Sixto Plasencia dropped his best seeds into the volcanic soil of Nicaragua.  His farms thrived once again, until in 1978 revolution once again destroyed his business.  The farms were burned by the Sandinistas, and the family fled once again, this time to Honduras.  A third new beginning awaited, and the Nestor Plasencia represented the fourth generation of the family to grow tobacco when he entered the industry in 1986.  He rose to making over 1,000,000 cigars for other companies every year in his Honduran factories.

By 1990 the family had returned to the farms in Nicaragua, working them alongside those in Honduras, and by 2000 30 different brands were trusting the Plasencia factories to produce 33,000,000 cigars a year for their brands.  In 2015 the family was confirmed as the largest tobacco grower in the world, with their 8 plantations in Honduras and Nicaragua producing more than 40,000,000 cigars each year.

Having produced tobacco and cigars in such enormous quantities, and to such high standards, for so long; having overcome so much adversity to remain one of the foremost names in the industry, in 2017 the fifth generation of Plasencia cigar makers decided it was time their own name graced their product.  Using the knowledge and infrastructure built up over more than 150 years, a collection of Nicaraguan puro cigars was released, comprising several different lines, flavour profiles, and vitolas.

Plasencia Reserva Original

The Reserva Original series was one of the original releases, comprising 8 classic cigar vitolas.  The strength of this series is light-to-medium, perhaps belying the usual perception of Nicaraguan cigars but definitely showing the prowess of the family as blenders.  It employs ever-popular shapes, like the Reserva Original Robusto and Reserva Original Piramide, alongside sizes more familiar to seasoned aficionados than novice smokers, thus covering all bases.  Signature flavours include nuts, caramel, cedar and sumptuous hints of cream.

Plasencia Alma Fuerte

The Alma Fuerte collection has proved to be one of Plasencia’s most highly-praised to date.  Using tobacco aged for at least 9 years, these cigars are all presented in large formats which allow the smoker to fully appreciate the medium-to-full strength blend.  Rich flavours of red fruit, chocolate and coffee abound, and are particularly well-represented in the spectacular Alma Fuerte Generacion V – a mammoth salomones of 7 inches by 58 ring gauge.

Plasencia Alma del Campo

Alma del Campo sit somewhere between Alma Fuerte and the Reserva Original in terms of strength.  They are healthily-sized cigars – nothing smaller than a robusto in this group, and the Alma del Campo Madrono is nothing short of spectacular – and really give the smoker a chance to experience every nuance of the flavour.  Lashings of cream blended with rich spice are to be expected.

Having created award-winning cigars for so many brands for such a long time – brands like Rocky Patel and Alec Bradley – it is only natural that the family’s own brand was also well-received.  Many of the cigars in the collection have regularly scored over 90 points in reviews done by the most discerning of cigar publications and websites.  Despite being technically a young name on the shelf, there is plenty of knowledge infused in these sticks.

For today’s smoker, Plasencia offers an excellent alternative to a go-to Cuban cigar and a perfect introduction to what Nicaragua has to offer in terms of tobacco.  One can only imagine what magnificence the next 150 years of this talented family will offer us.