Brazil is best known as a source of dark, naturally sweet tobacco, but it is also a genuine cigar-making country. In the state of Bahia, in the Reconcavo region, a distinctive tradition produces cigars that taste unmistakably Brazilian — rich, sweet and earthy — rather than like echoes of Cuba or Central America.
The Story
Brazilian premium cigar making centers on the Menendez Amerino factory in Sao Goncalo dos Campos, Bahia — a collaboration between Cuban cigar maker Felix Menendez, who worked on famous Cuban brands before the revolution, and Brazilian tobacco grower Mario Amerino. Their Dona Flor cigars are among the best-known Brazilian-made premiums.
The Tobacco
Brazil's signature leaf comes from Bahia: Mata Fina, dark, smooth and slightly sweet, and the heavier Mata Norte, often used for binder and filler. These tobaccos give Brazilian cigars their characteristic chocolate-and-sweetness profile and are prized by blenders elsewhere too.
What to Expect
Brazilian cigars tend toward chocolate, sweetness, coffee and earth, with a dark, rich profile. These are tendencies rather than rules.
chocolate · sweetness · coffee
Made In vs Tobacco From
Brazil is a clear illustration of a principle Cigarato takes seriously: where a cigar is MADE is not the same as where its tobacco comes from. Take the Dona Flor CC Bahia Blend — made in Brazil, but wearing a Connecticut Shade wrapper from the United States over a Brazilian Mata Fina binder and Mata Fina/Mata Norte filler. Cigarato associates a cigar with an origin only by its verified country of manufacture, never by the tobacco it happens to contain.
Notable Producers
Dona Flor (Menendez Amerino)