Costa Rican Cigars

Costa Rica is the boutique outlier of the cigar world, a small producer known for luxury rather than volume. Set between Nicaragua and Panama, it grows some of its own filler and binder, and its dark wrapper leaf has become a sought-after alternative to Mexican and Brazilian maduro. What really put it on the map is craft: this is the home of Selected Tobacco, the ultra-premium house founded by Nelson Alfonso, the designer behind the Cohiba Behike, who rolls Atabey, Byron, and Bandolero at the Tabacos de Costa Rica factory. El Septimo builds its luxury lines here too. Most of these cigars blend Costa Rican leaf with Nicaraguan and Ecuadorian tobacco, then age for years before release. Rare and refined, Costa Rican cigars sit at the luxury end of the market.