Balmoral’s Perez-Carrillo Collaboration Out Now

Royal Agio Cigars, makers of the handmade Balmoral brand, is now shipping its collaboration cigar with veteran cigarmaker Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. The new cigar is called Dueto, and it’s slated to be the first release in Balmoral’s “collaboration-based” collection, Serie Signaturas.
Dueto was blended by Perez-Carrillo, owner of EPC Cigar Co., and Royal Agio owner Boris Wintermans. The cigars are rolled at Perez-Carrillo’s La Alianza factory in the Dominican Republic with a blend made entirely of Nicaraguan tobaccos, save for the bit of Brazilian-grown leaf in the filler.
Dueto comes in five sizes: Robusto, measuring 5 inches by 50 ring gauge; Ovación, a figurado, at 5 1/2 by 50; Gran Toro, 6 by 52; Gordo 6 by 60; and Churchill, 7 by 49. Each vitola comes in 10 count boxes and retails between $9.75 and $12.50, depending on size.
Founded in Holland in 1904, Royal Agio Cigars was started by Jacques Wintermans and is currently headed up by fourth-generation descendant Boris Wintermans.
EPC Cigar Co. was founded in 2009 after Perez-Carrillo, the longtime maker of the La Gloria Cubana brand, left his post at General Cigar Co. to form his own company.