Asylum

Asylum is the other half of CLE. Tom Lazuka set it up in 2012 with his long-time friend Christian Eiroa, the same year Eiroa founded CLE under his own initials.

Production is split between two countries. Most comes out of NACSA — Nicaragua American Cigars — in Estelí; the rest from the Aladino factory in Danlí, Honduras. This entry is Nicaraguan because the atlas files by the principal place, and it writes the second rather than hiding it.

The Danlí factory deserves a sentence of its own: it was a cinema, and it belonged to Christian Eiroa's grandfather. It was also among the first tobacco facilities certified by Bayer CropScience.

The brand made its name through oversized formats — Asylum 13 runs up to ring gauges few houses attempt — and through a price that does not follow that excess. It is a deliberate stance, the opposite of CLE's heritage register, though both come from the same hands.

Range Depth

• Asylum 13

  Wrapper Nicaraguan blend · Strength Full

  The founding range, and the one of oversized formats: the vitolas take their ring gauge for a name, up to eighty. Rolled at NACSA, in Estelí.

  Robusto · Toro · Sixty · Seventy · Eighty

• Asylum Insidious

  Wrapper Nicaraguan blend · Strength Medium-Full

  The more measured side of the catalogue, in classic formats. Same workshop, same stance on price.

  Corona · Robusto · Toro

• Asylum Straight Jacket

  Wrapper Nicaraguan blend · Strength Full

  The straitjacket, in so many words. The house pushes its theme to the end of the names, as Black Label Trading pushes its own.

  Robusto · Toro