New La Palina Goldie Shipping This Week
La Palina fans have come to look for a limited-edition smoke rolled by one cigarmaker in Miami called the Goldie. This week, the newest creation is heading to cigar stores, and it's a slim smoke called Goldie Dalia.
Dalia is a Cuban cigar industry term, a specific size, or vitola, measuring 6 3/4 inches long with a 43 ring gauge. (For testing purposes, Dalias fall into Cigar Aficionado's broader lonsdale category.) Cuban dalias include the Cohiba Siglo V and the Partagás 8-9-8. The Goldie Dalia shares these dimensions, but breaks tradition with the addition of a flag-style cap—some would refer to it as a pigtail—finishing the cigar, which is typical for all Goldie releases.
The blend for this Goldie begins with a mix of Dominican and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos, a binder from Ecuador and it's all held together with a wrapper grown in Ecuador from Habano seed. As with previous Goldies, La Palina says this cigar includes a bit of medio tiempo tobacco. The skinny cigars don't come cheap, and will retail for $20 each, or $200 per box.
The cigars were shipping out today and La Palina expected them to be on sale as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
Maria Serra, an accomplished cigarmaker from Cuba, rolled each of these Goldies herself, as she has the others preceding this release. Serra, who previously worked at Cuba's El Laguito Factory making Cohiba cigars, now rolls at El Titan de Bronze, a tiny Miami cigar factory located on Calle Ocho in the heart of Little Havana. Only 25,000 cigars are being made, presented in 2,500 numbered boxes of 10.
This is the fifth annual release of the Goldie, a program that began in 2012. Serra, who can roll about 100 cigars a day, has been kept quite busy with this project.
The Goldie takes its name from Goldie Drell Paley, the wife of Sam Paley, who created the La Palina brand in 1896. La Palinas today are owned by Bill Paley, the grandson of Sam.
