La Galera goes big. The brand from Tabacalera La Palma and its owner Jochy Blanco is adding a new vitola with the name Coloso to two lines. The Coloso is a fitting name, as the cigars measure 8×60. The two lines that get these new additions are the La Galera Maduro and the La Galera Habano. According to Tabacalera Palma, there are no plans to add the Coloso to La Galera Connecticut, or the La Galera Anemoi lines.

Tabacalera Palma

The La Galera brand is one of the many brands coming from Tabacalera Palma. Yet most of the brands coming from the rollers of Tabacalera La Palma are private labels, cigars for other brands. La Galera is a brand of Tabacalera Palma itself. And the Tabacalera has a long history. The foundation of the company lays in the mid 19th century when a Spanish merchant moves to the Dominican Republic to trade tropical fruits and tobacco. His son, Jose Arnaldo Blanco I, started growing tobacco. His grandson and the son of Jose Arnaldo I, Jose Arnaldo II established Tabacalera La Palma in 1925. And in 1936, he filed for an industrial registration. With that, he became one of the first cigar manufacturers on the island. The company grew and in 1960 more than 200 rollers were rolling cigars at Tabacalera La Palma.

The fourth generation, and the third Jose Arnaldo Blanco, is now the CEO of Tabacalera Palma. He is better known as Jochy Blanco. When the option to move the factory to a duty-free trade zone presented itself, he took the leap. And not without results. Tabacalera Palma has a fantastic reputation within the cigar industry. Their tobacco is in demand, and they produce some high scoring cigars as well. For themselves, and others.

La Galera

One of those brands is La Galera. A line with four different wrappers. One Connecticut Shade and one Connecticut Broadleaf. Those two lines won’t get the new 8×60 Coloso. But also a Habano and a Maduro version, both of which get this monstrous cigar as a line-addition. Both lines will get 16-count boxes with the new size.

The La Galera Maduro is made with Dominican Piloto Cubano and Criollo 98 as filler. The binder is also Dominican Piloto Cubano. These tobaccos are from La Palma’s farms. The wrapper comes from Mexico, from the San Andres region. The La Galera Habano uses the same filler, but now with a Dominican Corojo binder. Also from the farms of Tabacalera Palma. The wrapper is Ecuadorian Habano.