La Palina Black Label

William "Bill" Paley founded this cigar brand in memory of his grandfather Samuel Paley, who produced a cigar by this name over 100 years ago. In 1926, he retired and also let this brand rest. Bill began developing a passion for cigars in the 1990s. Initially, he collaborated with Graycliff Cigars in the Bahamas, as the Paleys owned property there. After many attempts and numerous efforts, he finally introduced the first "new" La Palina to the U.S. market in 2010. Since 2013, we have been offering the Classic, Maduro, and El Diario. In the context of our Tabac Benden goes Nicaragua Tour in 2015 in Miami, we made an effort for another series and were successful!

A tribute to grandfather Samuel is certainly the cigar series Mr. Sam; additionally, the Goldie series is noteworthy, as it was the name of his grandfather's paternal wife. These two series are produced at the Tabacalera El Titan de Bronze in Miami, Florida. Due to their production in the U.S., they are not sellable in Germany due to the much higher import duties, or they would be so expensive that there would be no market for them. In the U.S., cigars from these series already cost around $20 each.

The La Palina Black Label cigars are produced in the Dominican Republic by Abraham "Abe" Flores, who has become a hidden gem for Small Batch cigars in recent years. He also produces for Gurkha Cigars and Kristoff, among others. Of course, he is also represented in our shop with his own brands PDR (which stands for the Cuban Pinar del Rio) as well as Flores y Rodriguez.

Abe uses a Brazilian leaf as the wrapper, in addition to which he uses two binders, one from Nicaragua and one from the Dominican Republic. The filler consists of Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos. According to Bill Paley, it is the strongest cigar in La Palina's portfolio, but we couldn't quite confirm this during a tasting in Miami on Calle Ocho. We really liked that the cigars had a high aromatic profile, with sweet and chocolaty notes.

We received the first shipment in mid-May 2015 and are "mighty" proud to be able to offer you these cigars exclusively again!