Caldwell's Silk Road Lancero Returns After 12 Years

Robert Caldwell's Eastern Standard Silk Road Lancero is back, exclusively at Smokingpipes.com, more than a decade after its first limited run in 2014. The 7 1/4 x 40 lancero uses an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper over a Dominican binder and fillers from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, rolled at Tabacalera William Ventura. Caldwell has called the original one of the best cigars his company has made, and this release is deliberately small: 240 ten-count boxes, or 2,400 cigars total, at $13.60 per cigar. The lancero format is a divisive choice, thin and slow, but it is also the shape that most exaggerates wrapper influence, which is exactly why boutique fans chase it. Because the entire run is tied to one retailer, expect it to move quickly even without the usual multi-channel hype.