Camacho Cigars: Honduran Corojo and the Danli Factory

Camacho is the brand that taught a generation what Honduran Corojo tastes like. It was founded in 1962 by Simon Camacho, acquired by the Eiroa family in 1995, and sold along with its Rancho Jamastran factory to the Oettinger Davidoff Group in 2008. Today it is made at Diadema Cigars de Honduras S.A. near Danlí, a factory built specifically for it. Our Camacho collection carries Corojo, Connecticut, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Broadleaf and Triple Maduro.

This profile covers the ownership history, the factory, every wrapper in the range, the bourbon barrel line, and the Liberty Series.

1962 to Davidoff

Simon Camacho founded the brand in 1962. The Eiroa family acquired it in 1995 and rebuilt it around Honduran Corojo, the varietal that had largely disappeared from Cuba. In 2008 Camacho and the Rancho Jamastran factory in Danlí were sold to the Oettinger Davidoff Group, with the Eiroas keeping their Honduran tobacco holdings.

Camacho is therefore a sister brand to Davidoff, Zino and AVO. It is also the loudest of the four by some distance, which is deliberate. Camacho is where the group puts its strength.

Camacho does not publish a named master blender, so we do not name one.

The Danlí factory

Diadema Cigars de Honduras S.A. sits beside the Pan-American Highway near Danlí. The land was bought in 2015, rolling began in January 2016, and the factory was formally inaugurated in the week of 25 May 2017. It covers 118,403 square feet on roughly 450,000 square feet of land, runs 125 pairs of rollers and employs more than 500 people. It replaced the older AgroIndustrias Laepe operation and also produces Baccarat and LegendArio.

The same factory now makes the Zino Nicaragua and Zino Honduras lines, and produced the first AVO ever made outside the Dominican Republic.

The four core wrappers in one size

Same Toro format, four different wrappers, so the wrapper is the only variable.

The wrappers, and what each one does

To compare wrappers across every brand we carry, see Connecticut, maduro, Habano and Ecuadorian.

The dark end, plus the sampler packs

American Barrel-Aged

Launched in June 2015, American Barrel-Aged was the first cigar in the core line made in the Dominican Republic rather than Honduras, and it remains one of the more interesting production stories in the category. It uses an American broadleaf wrapper and binder, with a filler of American broadleaf, Pennsylvania maduro, and six year old corojo aged in bourbon barrels. Roughly 2,000 pounds of tobacco are rotated through the barrels every few weeks, and each batch takes about five months.

Pennsylvania maduro is an unusual leaf to see named on a band. It is grown for chewing tobacco and cigar binder and carries a heavy, dark sweetness. Put alongside bourbon barrel aged corojo, it is what makes this cigar taste like nothing else Camacho makes.

The Liberty Series

The Liberty Series debuted in 2002 with five vitolas for Independence Day, and with the exception of 2002, 2004 and 2007 each year has been a single vitola. Liberty 2021 was a 7 by 48 Churchill with an Ecuadorian wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Dominican and Honduran filler, in 2,550 boxes of twenty, which is 51,000 cigars.

It is the longest running annual limited edition Camacho makes, and the one collectors track.

What we notice first-hand

Camacho is a brand with a very clear centre of gravity, and the centre is Corojo. Everything else in the range is good, but the Connecticut and the Ecuador are cigars you could find elsewhere. The Corojo is not. If you are trying Camacho for the first time and you can handle a full cigar, start there and start with the Robusto rather than the Toro.

Triple Maduro is worth calling out because the idea is so rarely executed. Maduro wrapper is common. Maduro wrapper, binder and filler together is not, and the result is a genuinely dense cigar that needs an hour and something to drink alongside it. It is not a cigar for a quick break.

Our practical note: Camacho burns hot if you rush it. The blends carry a lot of ligero, and drawing every thirty seconds turns spice into bitterness. Slow the pace down by half and the same cigar reads completely differently.

Camacho at Cigar Inc., live

Browse all Camacho

The bottom line

Buy Camacho for the Corojo. Keep the Connecticut for people who do not want strength, take the Ecuador when you want the house character without the full weight, and treat Triple Maduro as an occasion cigar. The Core Toro Selection pack is the cheapest way to try four of them side by side.

If you want to hear what the same corporate group does at the other end of the spectrum, read our Davidoff profile, or start with the Cigar Finder.

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