During more than 120 years, the Agio Cigars Company that was founded by Jacques Winterman, has been producing excellent hand and machine-made cigars as one of the industry leaders. The Balmoral little cigars brand is even older – it was at that time dating back to 1895. From its inception, the company had been owned by the Winterman family (the famous Henri Wintermans cigar brand was created by Jacques brother Henry Winterman, although the two companies subsequently completed).

And now Boris Winterman, who, together with master blender Willem Van Oberveld and director of the Dominican factory Francisco Batista, is developing new original lines of hand-made Balmoral little cigars, is actively experimenting with tobacco from different parts of the world. One of these super-successful experiments was the first release in 2012 of the Balmoral little cigars line. For them, the manufacturers decided to use a very rare cover sheet from Brazil, Arapiraco variety, aged 18 years! And the result exceeded all expectations – these Balmoral little cigars became not only the most demanded cigars mainly by European smokers, but also received the highest ratings from leading cigar publications. Unfortunately, the supply of 18-year-old Brazilian tobacco quickly ran out, and manufacturers had to look for a “successor” to their Balmoral little cigars line. So in 2015, the Balmoral little cigars of Anejo XO group appeared.

The composition of the cigar mixture also includes especially long-aged tobaccos, but this time the manufacturer does not disclose the secret of aging time, but given their own counterparts, we can say that the crop was harvested at least 10 years ago. Of course, the same cover sheet adorns the cigar – a dark brown aged Arapiraco from Brazil, giving a powerful sweetish-bitter taste. The cigar filler consists of tobaccos from the Dominican Republic and Nicraragua, and a Brazilian leaf is added, which distinguishes the line from the progenitor in which it was not. This difference in the mixture makes smoking more sweet chocolate, but is at the same time much stronger.