Cuban to the Core.(The Good Life)(Cuban cigar )

Byline: Nick Foulkes; NICK FOULKES

I was being driven around Havana the other day when the taxi driver told me a joke. A Cuban descending into hell finds it divided by nationality. The torture of the day involves beatings with sticks sporting nails at their ends. Members of all the other nations fill the air with cries of pain. But the Cuban section is oddly quiet, and a queue has formed outside. "What is the matter?" asks the new arrival. "It is the same old story," responds an old-timer with a shrug, "shortage of wood, shortage of nails."

This joke sprang to mind a couple of hours later when I was watching the drum of white ash form at the tip of my cigar in the VIP tasting room of the Partagas factory, opposite the Cuban capitol building. The air was blue with fragrant smoke as a dozen people--including the director of the Partagas factory, a feisty woman named Hilda Barros, her staff and the board of directors of Britain's Cuban cigar monopoly Hunters & Frankau--sampled a new cigar: the Gloria Cubana Gloriosos. The cigar, specially developed as a long robusto, was outstanding: beautiful to look at, the glossy cafe au lait sheen of the wrapper giving way to an even burn and deliciously creamy flavor. It is part of the 2008 run of "regional specialties"--limited runs of unique cigars developed for individual export markets, and I could not wait for them to arrive in the U.K. But with only 25,000 slated for production, I was worried they would sell out fast.

I asked Barros when they would be shipped, and she replied that they had been made last November by a dedicated team of a dozen rollers. I asked again and got that fatalistic shrug that one encounters frequently in Havana; it appeared that while the cigars had been ready for almost a year, the boxes were still under construction.

Cuba makes around 120 million cigars a year, and about a fifth of them compose the popular Montecristo brand, a dependable and therefore predictable cigar. But the real changes have been at the connoisseur end of the market, with boutique cigars like the Gloria Cubana creating much of the interest. A mere 6 percent of Havana cigars fall into the boutique category--which includes regional specialties and other limited-edition runs--and yet it is this segment where the future of the industry lies.

The Montecristo Sublime is one of three 2008 Limited Editions making their way onto the market. Having worked my way through a couple, I can report that this is a not a cigar to be taken lightly; it ought to be preceded ...