24 of 46 Items
24 of 46 Items
AJ Fernandez Cigars is a family-oriented cigar company based in Miami, Florida. The cigars on this website were blended by AJ for his personal portfolio. Each brand is a unique smoking experience, a testament to AJ’s talent as a tobacco grower and blender. All components of each blend are selected based on strength, aroma and flavor in order to achieve a smooth and balanced smoking experience. AJ is truly a master of the fine art of balancing a cigar, always finding that perfect sweet spot of richness and flavor. When you put the finest fermented and aged tobacco in the hands of AJ, the result is New World, San Lotano, Bellas Artes and Enclave, just to name a few. With a cigar for every palate, you can rest assured when you smoke an AJ Fernandez portfolio cigar, you too will be all about Passion, Discipline and Great Tobacco!
FARMS
Strategically located within the rich and fertile grounds of Nicaragua, AJ has made huge investments all throughout the country in order to produce his very own tobacco from all the major growing regions. Those regions include Condega, Jalapa, Esteli, Pueblo Nuevo, Quilali and the island of Ometepe. Each farm or finca as they are called in their native tongue, has a name that is very meaningful to AJ. Some of the names are Finca La Providencia, La Lilia, Los Espejos, San Jose, La Soledad, San Lotano, San Diego, Los Cedros and Santa Lucia.
Early on, AJ understood that to produce a quality cigar year after year, you have to grow your own tobacco in order to maintain consistency and supply. In a short period of time, AJ has been able to amass a real estate portfolio like no other that allows him to grow specific tobacco varietals for all of his blends.
PROCESS
Once the growing process ends, the journey from seed to smoke continues. This is the time where all those hands you have been hearing so much about, start to touch the precious leaves that will be delicately and methodically bunched together in order to produce an exquisite smoking experience.
Each tobacco leaf is picked or primed from the plant at its most opportune time. As these leaves are strung up in tobacco drying houses along the countryside, they gently release their bright green color and take on new colors that mimic the seasons. Hues of yellow and brown gently take over the leaves as the main color. From the tobacco drying barns, the leaves travel to their new home to be sorted and arranged in fermentation piles or pilones. For the next six months to two years, these tobacco leaves will undergo a transformation that will bring out the qualities necessary to produce a premium cigar. From here, the tobacco leaves are once again sorted and put to rest in bales that will allow them to age for a few years before they make their way to the rollers hands.
FACTORIES
AJ Fernandez owns and operates 2 cigar factories in Nicaragua. Tabacalera AJ Fernandez de Nicaragua, SA is located in the heart of tobacco country in Estelí, Nicaragua. The San Lotano factory is located 70 kilometers north in Totogalpa. These 2 factories allow us to craft over 100,000 cigars per day all by hand. The artisans that put together the blends and form each cigar we get to enjoy do so employing time-honored methods that have been handed down to AJ from generations past.