First in linea

CUBA is the land of paradox —a country where contradictions co-exist and seemingly diametrically opposed opinions are reconciled as a matter of course. The success of Cuba’s most emblematic product is founded on the fundamental paradox that one of the world’s remaining bastions of socialism is the locus classicus of the prototypical plutocrat’s accessory: the cigar.

This year, the paradox that greeted me at the XXII annual Festival del Habano was that Havana had a new elite cigar, but it was neither new nor