Slim Pickings

All hail the queen! The new El Rey del Mundo La Reina, which harks back to the days of long, slender cigars, could mark a turning point

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THE Laguito No 1 is one of the most celebrated vitolas in the world, forever associated with the Cohiba Lanceros, that famous slender wand of tobacco with a little pigtail at its head. The Lanceros was launched in 1982 and it marked the high point of the pencil-like cigar.

I am one of those people old enough to remember when cigars were advertised on the TV. Bach’s Air on the G String still summons images of bald men in photobooths. Among the distant memories I have is an advertisement in which a cigar smoker is caught in a sudden rain shower —luckily, he is passing a hat shop, purchases a fedora with a brim wide enough to shelter his cigar from the elements and continues his walk. To protect the Lanceros from inclement weather, you would require a sombrero—it is 7½in long with a ring gauge of 38.

Throughout the 1980s, the slender Cohiba Lanceros remained the acme, the ultimate expression of Cuban savoir faire. Not only was it a showcase for the tobacco, its long leaves subjected to that extra fermentation that is the hallmark of Cohiba; the size of the cigar made it a test for the torcedores, with only the best rollers put on the manufacture of these cigars.