CAO Puts American Tobacco Front and Center

The original CAO America line has been running since 2007 on a blend that pulls binder from Brazil and filler from four countries. The new 250th Anniversary edition scraps all of that: every leaf in the box-pressed 5 1/2 x 55 robusto is grown on U.S. soil -- a barber-pole wrapper combining Connecticut broadleaf and Connecticut shade, a habano Connecticut binder, and a filler drawn from broadleaf and Pennsylvania tobacco. It still gets rolled in Nicaragua at STG's Esteli factory, because domestic rolling at any commercial scale simply isn't available, but the tobacco story is end-to-end American. Priced at $9.99 with production numbers undisclosed. The America 250 field has gotten crowded fast -- Aladino, Camacho, Fratello, Powstanie, and others all have patriotic drops this year -- but this one earns a distinct argument: most of those cigars use American-grown tobacco as an accent. This one uses it as the entire recipe.