RoMa Craft

CroMagnon

PA Broadleaf

CroMagnon is an incredibly important line to the RoMa Craft Tobac Family. Back in 2011, it stood alone as an unbanded debut blend for a boutique cigar company trying to make its way in a crowded industry. More than a decade later, after the cigar soared in popularity, was phased out and eventually removed from the company’s price list, the CroMagnon has surged back into our consciousness with a brand-new blend and a gigantic range of sizes and packaging. Everything from boxes and bundles, from larger ring gauges to bite-sized miniatures ensure that this cigar can be enjoyed by everyone and anyone no matter the time. Sometimes, a perceived setback can produce a result better than imagined. That appears to be the case with the all new RoMa CroMagnon PA Broadleaf. The original CroMagnon blend was made with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Cameroon binder and filler tobaccos grown in Nicaragua. When the company ran into issues sourcing a steady and reasonably sized supply of Connecticut wrapper they began to experiment with other offerings and ended up settling on the Pennsylvania Broadleaf. The new blend has a Sumatra hybrid binder from Ecuador and filler tobaccos from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The rich soils of Lancaster County, which produce a lot of the Pennsylvania Broadleaf wrapper, produce a beautiful, dark brown outer layer that has a refined, but rustic look out of the box. When lit, this cigar produces some true magic. Peppery spice gives way to the main flavor profile of dark chocolate and cedar wood, the latter of which has a defined creaminess to it. While this cigar will pair well, it’s also ideal as a solo act given how thought provoking the flavors can be. When plucking one of these sticks from the box, one notices how understated the branding is for this cigar. In a simple typewriter style font, the cigar denotes it’s a CroMagnon. There is no artwork. No fancy lettering. That is because the founders of RoMa believe in the blend and took their time adding any branding to their cigars after starting out. The result is a very flavor-forward experience that is more complex than most. Medium-full bodied in strength, this cigar is a slow burn with expert construction and a well-balanced profile that is never full-throttle but always keeps the smoker guessing as to what might happen next. The RoMa Craft band has been moving the goal posts in the cigar industry since its arrival on the scene. Not only do their blends taste good but they have the ability to transport smokers to another time and space altogether. Founded by Skip Martin and Michael Rosales, the brand kickstarted their profile with the O.G. CroMagnon, watching it climb to No. 16 on the highly respected Cigar Aficionado top 25 list back in 2016. But they did not stop there. Other popular lines include the Whiskey Rebellion 1794, which has a series of different Vitolas meant to take us back to a battle between farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania battling the U.S. government over what they believed to be unfair taxation. Or, the Intemperance BA XXI, which harkened to a turn of the century moment in American history where powers that be were cracking down on simple pleasures like alcohol and tobacco. The subtext here is obvious: RoMa views themselves as rebels and fighters in this battle for the soul of the cigar industry. Much like the trailblazers who came before them, they won’t merely accept the status quo, which is why every smoke is far more than a combination of tobaccos; it’s a story in and of itself. The RoMa Brand produces its cigars at the prestigious Fabrica de Tobacos Nica Sueño in Esteli, Nicaragua. This landlocked municipality is a hotbed of the modern cigar culture, with rich, volcanic farmland spread throughout the city’s beautiful, sweeping vistas. With eye-popping forests all around, the region is known as the “Diamond of the Segovia," for its pleasant climate and fertile soils. In Esteli, t