Gurkha
Black Dragon

Gurkha Black Dragon Cigar. Kaizad Hansotia created a five-of-a-kind smoking experience in 2006 with his $115,000 chest of specially made Gurkha Black Dragon cigars that was featured in the holiday edition of the Robb Report.

The five chests were each filled with 100 of a new blend he called “Black Dragon Edicion Especial” that featured 15-year-old tobaccos: a Connecticut maduro wrapper, Cameroon binder and Dominican-grown filler. Offered in one size, a massive 81/2-inch long by 52-ring giant, it was packaged in a 75-year-old antique camel bone chest hand carved by East Indian artisans. Wow! At $1,150 a cigar, there weren’t many takers, but Hansotia said he sold three of the five chests to buyers from the Middle East. But that’s not the end of the story.

The cigars were such a sensation that Hansotia re-blended the Black Dragon with currently available tobaccos and has made it available to smokers around the world...at substantially reduced prices! The Gurkha Black Dragon is now available in three sizes. The blend is still full-bodied, but is now made with a five-year-aged Cameroon wrapper, a Dominican binder and Nicaraguan and Peruvian filler leaves. It’s well constructed at the Torano family factory in Danli, Honduras.

The sizes include a Robusto (41/2inches by 52 ring), offered in boxes of 40; Presidente (81/2x 52) in boxes of 20 and Torpedo (61/2x53), also in boxes of 20. The presentation is outstanding, but not quite as over-the-top as the 2006 carved chests. The cigars are cradled in a lift-out tray inside an all-black box with a grained leatherette surface. The interior surface is a stunning red velvet. “We are confident the market aware-ness of our quality and unique presentations,” said Hansotia, “will create a rush to experience some of the opulence of the original, ultra-exclusive Black Dragon release. The new, more accessible Black Dragon will give them an opportunity to live that dream.”