The 13th Subterraneo cigar – MERCURY – went live across the US at Midnight! For the uninitiated, the Limited Cigar Association’s Subterraneo series is a set of collectible cigars released via a nationwide scavenger hunt. All Subterraneo cigars were blended by AJ Fernandez using only tobaccos grown on his farms, and rolled at Tabacalera AJ Fernandez. The Mercury is composed of Broadleaf, Habano, Criollo, and Corojo.
A very limited supply, only 7500, of each of the original 12 cigars were produced. Spread throughout the country, not even the participating shops knew in advance which cigars they were getting. Through trading, bargaining, and bartering, a very few determined individuals were able to complete the entire set. Don’t know where your local Limited Cigar Association shop is? Use their store locator to find it!
Each cigar in the series is a kind of avatar, representing a full cast of characters set in a reality where the origins of Mayan mythology are explored and made malleable. A time and place wherein special entities have been around since long before humans and are responsible for the nutrient content of the soils that make tobacco farming possible in Central America. In this story, centuries of rare but inevitable exposure to these beings has helped shape the modern world. It’s a fun rabbit hole to explore while enjoying one of the series’ cigars, and even if the world they’ve created for you isn’t your thing – the cigars are still made from some of AJ’s favorite tobaccos, the ones he’s made a note of over the past 15 years.
The Limited Cigar Association exists primarily to help foster connections between cigar enthusiasts and their local brick & mortar shops. The core mission of the Association is to use a large and growing online reach to bring real people into real shops to make real relationships. The motivation for the Subterraneo series in particular was to connect cigar smokers to shops all over the county, and to the smokers that frequent them. It’s this kind of innovative community building that the LCA shops credit with the program’s success. Like Oak Glen Tobacconist’s Eric Drazin, or the team over at Wooden Indian Tobacco, the LCA shops that really understand the program are the ones that help make it the most fun for their patrons – through live events, creative social posts and infotainment videos. In the true spirit of the LCA, these shops leverage their digital reach to curate real life experiences.
If you don’t have an LCA shop nearby, shops that also have an online store are allowed to make them available on their websites. If there is a shop nearby that you love, but they aren’t in the LCA yet, you can connect them with the Association like hundreds of cigar heads have already done.
Are you going to be getting these online are are you heading to your local shop? Have you collected the original 12? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!