Cohiba Short (10 Sticks per Box)

Cohiba began in 1966 as a state secret: rolled at the converted French-colonial mansion of El Laguito, Cubanacán, Havana, exclusively for Fidel Castro and diplomatic gifts — no public sale for nearly 16 years. That origin shaped a production philosophy of uncompromising selectivity that persists today.

Tobacco is drawn exclusively from approximately 10 Vegas Finas de Primera in the San Luis and San Juan y Martínez zones of Vuelta Abajo, Pinar del Río — Cuba's most prized alluvial red-clay and sandy-loam soils. In an average year, only the output of roughly five of those fields clears Cohiba's quality threshold.

The defining technical signature is a mandatory third barrel fermentation applied to the seco and ligero filler leaves — stacked in small wooden barrels in temperature-controlled closets at El Laguito, lasting up to 18 months. No other Habanos brand employs this step. It strips residual nicotine and tars while building layered aromatic complexity unavailable through standard two-fermentation Cuban production. The three-leaf filler construction — Volado, Seco, Ligero — is finished by hand by skilled torcedores and fumigated at Habanos S.A.'s Guanabacoa facility post-rolling.

The Short vitola delivers the Línea Clásica profile — cedar, dark chocolate, roasted coffee — in a compact format that concentrates the third-fermentation character into a shorter, more intense smoke without sacrificing structural complexity.