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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
It is hard to think of many good things that came out of the Cold War. About the only example that comes to mind is Cohiba. What began as the personal cigar of Fidel Castro has now evolved into a luxury marque that stands shoulder to shoulder with Hermès or Chanel as a maker of products as rare as they are recognisable.
The Cohiba that gets cigar collectors and aficionados most worked up is the Behike, which was launched in 2010 and celebrated its 15th anniversary at the recent Festival del Habano in Havana. At an auction during the festival, a humidor of 400 Behikes raised €4.6mn, setting a new record for a humidor sale: €11,500 a cigar.
One reason for this remarkable price was that the humidor contained a new size: the 7in, log-like 58-ring-gauge cigar is a behemoth, but a behemoth with good manners. This gentle giant has skilfully captured the family resemblance in terms of flavour profile: complex, creamy and rounded, it bursts with notes of chocolate against a nutty background, moving towards coffee as the burn progresses. The final third, like any Cuban cigar, sees an intensification of flavour, but equilibrium is brilliantly maintained, as one would hope for a cigar that will probably soon be trading at sums approaching £1,000 a stick.
While the new BHK 58 is a huge cigar, it owes its existence to the two smallest leaves at the top of the tobacco plant. Concentrated and high in nicotine, they are known as Medio Tiempo and, until the launch of Behike 15 years ago, had fallen from use for more than half a century.
The leaves do not appear on every plant, but when they do, they are left there, soaking up the rays until they are plump and oily. And because of their strength they require 60 days in the curing barn against 45 or so for “normal” leaf tobacco. All Cuban tobacco is twice fermented over a period of about 100 days, first at 35ºC, and then around 40 to 50ºC. Medio Tiempo requires 200 days at up to 55ºC and must then age for a further two years. Like all Cohiba tobacco, it finally undergoes a lengthy third fermentation that accounts for the balance and smoothness.
In an age characterised by mass production and the relentless democratisation of luxury, there remains something reassuring about the existence of products like the Behike – creations whose quality comes not from marketing hyperbole but from the scarcity of raw materials, the preservation of artisanal techniques and the accumulated wisdom of generations of craftspeople.
