The Talisman Comes Full Circle: Cohiba’s Pigtail Returns to London
Nine years after its debut as a Limited Edition, the Cohiba Talisman joins the Linea Clasica as regular production. The world launch at the Orangery at Kensington Palace opened the brand’s 60th anniversary year.
On the evening of Wednesday, October 7, some 400 guests gathered inside the Orangery at Kensington Palace in London for the global premiere of the new Cohiba Talisman. Distributors, international media, Habanos enthusiasts, executives from Habanos S.A., and representatives of Hunters & Frankau, the United Kingdom’s Habanos distributor, were among the first to taste the cigar. The evening opened what Habanos is calling the Year of Cohiba, the brand’s 60th anniversary.
A cigar that spent nine years as a trophy is now a regular production item.
The news at the center of it: the Talisman, introduced in 2017 as an Edicion Limitada, is now a permanent member of the Cohiba Linea Clasica. It becomes the ninth vitola in the line, the first portfolio created for Cohiba, a brand founded in 1966. A cigar that began as a one-time release, then became a collector phenomenon, will now be made on an ongoing basis.
The 2017 original
To understand the fuss, go back to the same city. On November 7, 2017, Habanos and Hunters & Frankau held the Talisman’s worldwide launch at the Corinthia Hotel in London, and the United Kingdom was the first market to receive it. The cigar was rolled at the El Laguito factory in Havana, measured 154 millimeters by 54 ring gauge, and carried the factory name Canonazo Doble before release, when it became the Sublimes No. 1. As an Edicion Limitada, it used tobacco aged at least two years before rolling. Original production is believed to have been in the region of 500,000 cigars.
Then came the surprise. The original Habanos marketing imagery showed the Talisman with a conventional head. When the finished cigars arrived in London, they wore pigtail caps. Habanos was asked about the change and offered no explanation at the time; its later launch material described the pigtail as one of the cigar’s distinguishing features. The pigtail stayed, and it became the Talisman’s signature.
The market did the rest. The launch price was 65 pounds per cigar, or 600 pounds for a box of ten. Mitchell Orchant, then of CGars Ltd, described it as the fastest-selling cigar in his company’s history. Cigar Aficionado awarded the 2017 release 91 points. In 2019, Habanos produced an additional quantity using tobacco from the same harvest as the original, which is why collectors encounter boxes dated both 2017 and 2019. On the secondary market, boxes that sold for 600 pounds at launch have since changed hands for far more: recent UK auction results include 2,320 pounds, while retail asking prices have climbed past 4,500 pounds.
What changes in 2026
The 2026 Talisman keeps the established format: 154 mm by 54 ring gauge, parejo with pigtail, Sublimes No. 1. Habanos describes it as medium to full in strength, with a smoking time of about 60 to 90 minutes. But the company is explicit that this is not a reissue. Edicion Limitada cigars are made with darker wrappers taken from the upper part of the tobacco plant; the new Talisman’s wrapper will match the rest of the Linea Clasica. Jose Maria Lopez Inchaurbe, Habanos’ vice president of development, put it plainly: the objective is not to reproduce the flavor profile of the original.
The packaging is new as well, and it previews where the whole Linea Clasica is headed. The Talisman arrives in a 10-count Boite Nature box with an NFC chip embedded in the inner label, for authenticity verification and a digital product experience. Every cigar carries a new foot band bearing the vitola’s name. The Linea Clasica is only the second Cohiba portfolio to use NFC, after the Behike line, and Habanos says the refreshed packaging will roll out across the rest of the line.
For the United Kingdom, the presentation goes further. Hunters & Frankau will sell a three-cigar Talisman gift set, 6,500 boxes produced, each with a second band marking Cohiba’s 60th anniversary, at a recommended price of 600 pounds. The ten-count boxes will see worldwide availability expand through the year, according to Habanos, though Lopez told reporters at the launch that standard ten-count boxes are expected to reach international markets in 2027.
London, again
There is a reason the return happened in London. The city’s cigar merchants have hosted a string of landmark Cohiba launches: the Linea 1492 at Claridge’s in 1993, the Siglo VI, the Behike 52, 54 and 56 in 2010, and the original Talisman in 2017. Jemma Freeman, executive chair of Hunters & Frankau, said the new launch continues that proud tradition. The choice of city also reflects circumstance: the 2026 Festival del Habano in Havana, which had been scheduled for late February, was canceled, and Habanos is marking the anniversary year with events around the world instead.
The launch evening mixed an exhibition of iconic Cohiba products with live music and cocktails created for the occasion by The Dalmore and Eminente Rum. Each guest left with a Talisman gift pack, and Hunters & Frankau ran a charity raffle in support of the Cuba Vive Medical Aid and Food Appeal. The celebrations continued the next night, with a Talisman sampling at James J. Fox on St James’s Street and ‘The Road to Talisman’ at Dominique London on Pall Mall.
For collectors, the open question is the obvious one: how the new Talisman compares with the 2017 and 2019 productions. The format is familiar, but Habanos has said plainly that the tobacco and the blend are not the same. The answer will come the slow way, one cigar at a time. What is certain is the status change. A cigar that spent nine years as a trophy is now a regular production item, and the 60th anniversary year has its first chapter.
