Believe it or not, green “candela” cigars were once the preferred smokes of Americans from 1958-early 1970’s. They were so popular in the United States that of the billions of cigars Americans smoked, nearly half of them were as green as manicured lawns.
Candela cigars are known for having green instead of brown wrappers. The color is often mistaken for a young tobacco leaf, but it is actually a product of the process used to cure the leaf that preserves the chlorophyll.
The “Hulk-colored” cigars went out of favor in the early 1970s, replaced by cream-colored smokes with Connecticut-shade wrappers. The candela choices now among handmade cigars are rather limited, but several notable additions have surfaced in recent years.
– Fuente’s “8-5-8 Claro” is one of the early and popular candela cigars is still hand-rolled today. The 8-5-8 Claro is sold at our Neptune Beach location only.
– The “Filthy Hooligan” from Alec Bradley is the same exact long-filler core of the 90-rated Black Market cigar, except this cigar’s wrapper is Nicaraguan Candela. The Filthy Hooligan is available at our Gate Pkwy and Ponte Vedra Beach stores.
– The Asylum 13 “Ogre” from C.L.E. mixes the sweetness of the candela wrapper with a rich maduro wrapper (wrapped in a candy cane style), giving it complex flavors and good balance. The Ogre is available at our Gate Pkwy, Neptune Beach and Ponte Vedra Beach stores.
It’s a perfect time of year to ‘go green’!
