Asylum

Asylum started as a joke about a cigar nobody else would make. Tom Lazuka kept noticing empty 70-ring-gauge boxes on shop shelves, sticks that sold out whenever they appeared but were never in stock. When he pitched the idea to Christian Eiroa, the former head of Camacho, Eiroa called it the worst idea he had ever heard, so they named the brand Asylum and ran with it. Launched in 2012, Asylum made its name on enormous formats, the 7×70 and even an 8×80, then kept going with oddities like the barber-pole Ogre. The cigars are mostly Nicaraguan, made at Tabacaleras Unidas in Estelí, with some production in Honduras, and the prices stay refreshingly aggressive. Big, bold, and built without pretense, Asylum cigars are for smokers who want a long burn and plenty of flavor for the money.