The Story Behind Every Vitola with Billy and Gus Fakih of Artesano Del Tobacco
One of the questions I hear most often is: “If a Robusto is a Robusto and a Toro is a Toro, why do they come in different lengths and ring gauges from one brand to another?” The answer is much deeper than measurements. Every cigar size tells a story. At Artesano Del Tobacco, we don’t choose a cigar’s size because it looks attractive or because it’s following a trend. We choose it because the blend tells us what it wants to become. Every great cigar begins long before the tobacco is rolled. It starts with years of blending, tasting, adjusting, and understanding how each leaf behaves. Our goal is never simply to create a strong cigar or a mild cigar. Our goal is to create harmony—a cigar where flavor, strength, aroma, and complexity work together from the first draw to the last. When developing a cigar, we study four essential elements that shape the smoking experience:
The Wrapper – the cigar’s face, contributing flavor, aroma, and character.
The Binder – the structural backbone that also influences combustion and body.
The Filler – the heart of the blend, where much of the strength, complexity, and personality are created.
The Size (Vitola) – the element that brings all the others together, changing how each tobacco performs.
And then there is a fifth element that is just as important: The market. Listening to cigar smokers is just as important as understanding tobacco.
A great cigar should satisfy both the blender’s vision and the smoker’s expectations. This is where science meets craftsmanship. The exact same blend can taste dramatically different simply by changing the size. A smaller ring gauge often delivers a more concentrated smoking experience because the wrapper has greater influence and the filler is compressed differently. A larger ring gauge allows more filler tobaccos to shine, often creating a smoother, richer, and more balanced profile. As we increased the ring gauge, everything changed. Beginning around a 56-ring gauge, EL Pulpo found its sweet spot. The additional filler allowed the strength to become more refined while preserving the bold character, dark richness, and complexity that define the blend. Nothing was lost—everything became more balanced. Then came another challenge. Our Club 500 members asked for something many thought impossible: an EL Pulpo Lancero.
A Lancero is elegant, beautiful, and unforgiving. Because of its slimmer ring gauge, every component of the blend becomes magnified. Simply using the larger-ring blend would have produced a cigar that was too intense. Instead, we went back to the drawing board. We carefully adjusted specific filler components, reducing strength while preserving the signature flavor profile that makes EL Pulpo recognizable. The goal wasn’t to create a different cigar—it was to create the same EL Pulpo experience in an entirely different format.
The same philosophy guided the creation of the EL Pulpo Culebra, where three slender cigars are braided together. Its unique shape demanded its own careful balancing act, proving once again that every vitola requires its own thoughtful approach.
We follow this philosophy with every blend we create. For Viva La Vida, we discovered that the blend truly comes alive in 54-ring gauge and larger formats. Those sizes allow the blend to express its creamy texture, complexity, and richness exactly as we intended. Every cigar has a size where it performs at its highest level. That’s why there is no universal Robusto, Toro, Churchill, or Lancero. While those names describe general categories, every manufacturer fine-tunes the dimensions to complement its own unique blend.
At Artesano Del Tobacco, we believe size is never an afterthought. It is one of the final ingredients in the recipe. When you create a cigar, you must understand the strength and flavor of the wrapper, the contribution of the binder, the balance of the filler, and how the chosen size allows each of those elements to perform in harmony. Then you listen to the market—to the people who will ultimately enjoy your work. When all five elements come together, you don’t simply create another cigar. You create a masterpiece—one that tells its story with every draw.
