Atabey

Atabey carries the name of the mother goddess of the Taíno, the first inhabitants of the Greater Antilles — the goddess of fresh water and fertility. The choice states the ambition: to reach back before Cuba, before Spain, to the supposed origin of tobacco.

Its creator, Nelson Alfonso, is a Cuban artist who spent years designing for Habanos S.A. — he conceived the visual identity of the Cohiba Behike, the cigar whose price marked a break for the Cuban industry. In 2012 he founded Selected Tobacco in Costa Rica and crossed to the other side: no longer dressing other people's cigars, but making his own.

Atabey is produced in very limited quantities, in formats with ritual names — Divinos, Brujos, Delirios, Ritos. The profile is mild to medium, extremely well built, with a finesse rarely met outside Havana: cedar, cream, white flowers, a length that owes nothing to strength.

It is the most expensive cigar in this atlas, and one of the few whose author comes from drawing rather than from the field.

Range Depth

• Atabey Brujos

  Wrapper Undisclosed blend · Strength Medium

  Cedar, cream, white flowers, a length that owes nothing to strength. The finesse one rarely meets outside Havana — and a price to match.

  Robusto

• Atabey Ritos

  Wrapper Undisclosed blend · Strength Medium

  The large format of the series, whose ritual names are borrowed from the Taíno. The same construction, with more time to unfold it.

  Toro

🥃 Pairings

• Blanc de blancs champagne

  Wine

  The only thing fine enough not to crush a cigar built on lacework.

• Tarrazú coffee

  Coffee

  The great Costa Rican growth, grown at altitude, with the cigar made in the same country.