CAO Rolls a Cigar Built Entirely From U.S. Tobacco

Scandinavian Tobacco Group's CAO brand has quietly shipped one of the more interesting America 250 commemoratives on the market: a barber pole toro that uses only American-grown leaf throughout. The wrapper combines U.S.-grown broadleaf with Connecticut shade, the binder comes from an undisclosed domestic state, and the filler blends Pennsylvania tobacco with leaf from a second undisclosed U.S. source. That leaf origin story is the point -- most anniversary releases this year waved the flag on the band while keeping the tobacco firmly in Nicaragua or Honduras. This one actually makes the all-American provenance part of the blend architecture. The cigars are 5.5 x 55 box-pressed and come in 10-count boxes at $9.99 per stick, a price that does not telegraph a collector item. They are rolled at the STG Esteli factory in Nicaragua and began shipping in May.