Gurkha Cigar Group International announced today the suspension of a popular brand: Colección Especial.
The Colección Especial was released by Gurkha Cigar Group in 2022 as an annual limited run of cigars. The Ecuadorian hybrid wrapper encasing the Colección Especial is scarce and difficult to cultivate, but was a crucial part of the cigar. At the time, Gurkha announced that it would be continuing production of the cigar annually, but limited the amount of cigars released each year since the wrapper is so difficult to come by. Unfortunately, 2023 made it even harder for suppliers to grow the special wrapper.
It’s no surprise we’ve had a very wet year in the second half of 2023. The culprit: El Niño. Extreme heat and crazy amounts of rain have swept through the Eastern Hemisphere and left mush in Mother Nature’s path. Taking a toll on all of our lawns, El Niño has also hit hard to our beloved crops across Ecuador.
Many farmers in Ecuador have reported their crop production was only 25% of previous years due to the El Niño phenomenon. The extreme heat and heavy rains have produced both flooding and burning of budding flowers on crops across the country. The effect can be devastating to the economy. Reported by fairplanet.org, “Ecuador’s Coastal Chamber of Agriculture estimates that around 80,000 hectares of agricultural land will be lost due to El Niño-triggered floods along the coast.” And tobacco crops were not spared.
“We’ve decided to put a pause of the release of this year’s production for Colección Especial,” says Jim Colucci, President of Gurkha Cigar Group. “The cigar is fantastic largely in part to the flavor of it’s hybrid Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper. With the popularity it has gained across the world, we’re having a hard time securing enough viable wrapper to sustain the demand, as many of the crops were not able to fully cultivate this past year. We expect to be back at full swing of production in the coming years, but for now we’re pausing the brand for about 3-6 months.”
Gurkha Cigar Group says they’re far from discontinuing the popular line, just taking a pause while crops and production can catch up to the increase in worldwide demand. There is a silver lining, however, coming to retailers following the PCA Show in Las Vegas late March, is the Colección Especial Nicaragua, a Nicaraguan Puro. Released in a special size and packaging exclusively to the TAA in 2022, Gurkha Cigars’ Colección Especial Nicaragua will be coming mainstream this spring.
