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It is difficult to think about many good things that came out of the cold war. The only example that comes to mind is Cohiba. What began as Fidel Castro’s personal cigar has now become a luxury brand that is shoulder shoulder with Hermès or Chanel as manufacturer of products as rare as recognizable.
He Cohiba That makes cigarettes collectors and fans be Behike, which was launched in 2010 and celebrated its 15th anniversary in the recent Habano Festival In Havana. In an auction during the festival, a humidor of 400 Behikes raised € 4.6mn, establishing a new record for a sale of Humidor: € 11,500 per cigar.
A reason for this remarkable price was that the Humidor contained a new size: the 58 -inch 58 -inch rings cigar is a giant, but a giant with good manners. This giant giant has skillfully captured family similarity in terms of flavor profile: complex, creamy and rounded, explodes with chocolate notes against a nut background, moving towards coffee as the burn progresses. The final third, like any Cuban cigar, sees an intensification of the taste, but the balance remains brilliantly, since one would expect a cigar that will probably soon be negotiated to sums that approach £ 1,000 per stick.
While the new BHK 58 is a huge cigar, it owes its existence to the two smaller leaves in the upper part of the tobacco plant. Concentrates and high in nicotine, they are known as part -time 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 each plant, but when they do, they stay there, absorbing the rays until they are crying and fatty. And due to their strength they require 60 days in the cure barn against 45 or so for the “normal” leaf tobacco. All Cuban tobacco is fermented twice for a period of approximately 100 days, first at 35ºC and then around 40 to 50ºC. Part time requires 200 days to up to 55ºC and then must age for another two years. Like all Cohiba tobacco, it finally suffers a long third fermentation that explains the balance and softness.
In an era characterized by mass production and the implacable democratization of luxury, there is something reassuring about the existence of products such as Behike, creations whose quality does not come from the marketing hyperbole but from the shortage of raw materials, the preservation of artisanal techniques and the accumulated wisdom of generations of artisans.