Ozgener Expands Portfolio With Milder Smoke
Tim Ozgener has been hitting the road to meet with cigar smokers, spreading the word about his Ozgener Family Cigars, which hit the market in 2022. One of the questions he’s been hearing quite a bit is a request for a milder cigar. His Aramas release is perhaps a touch stronger. Taking the consumer to heart, he’s now ready to come out with a new line, aimed at cigar lovers looking for something lighter.
“A lot of people are asking for a mild to medium-bodied cigar,” Ozgener says. “We want to target that category.”
That new smoke is called Firsat, which means “opportunity” in Turkish, a nod to Ozgener’s roots. “Its base filler is Ometepe,” says Ozgener, referring to the sweet leaf grown on the volcanic island of Ometepe in Nicaragua. The entire filler blend is Nicaraguan, the binder is Ecuador Habana, and the wrapper leaf is a Connecticut seed grown in Ecuador. It’s a high-priming leaf, Ozgener says, giving the cigar a bronze shade.
The cigars are rolled at Ernesto Perez-Carrillo’s Casa Carrillo (formerly Tabacalera La Alianza) in Santiago, Dominican Republic, and they have a shape that’s a bit different from Ozgener’s other smokes. “It’s a soft press,” he says, unlike Bosphorus, which is box pressed, and Aramas, which is round. “It’s more of a subtle press,” he says.
Firsat has a size that you won’t find in Ozgener’s other lines, a double corona. He wanted it because it reminds him of a milder blend from when he and his family owned the CAO brand. “Back when we had CAO Gold,” he says, “we found the double corona size, 7 by 54, tasted really good.”
Firsat will come in four sizes, all of them named for the thickness of the cigar. There is F52, which is 5 inches long by 52 ring gauge; F55, 5 1/2 by 55; F60, 6 by 60 and the double corona, named F54, which is 7 inches long.
Prices for Firsat will be around $12 to $14 per smoke. They will be on display at the PCA trade show and Ozgener hopes to have them in cigar shops by April.
