El Mago James Avenue Sumatra

El Mago's James Avenue pays tribute to a piece of founder Nick Fusco’s family history in Miami Beach. The line takes its name from the James Hotel, a property purchased by Fusco’s grandfather, Gonzalo Torre, in 1989 and still standing on James Avenue today. Rather than treating the collection as one blend with four wrapper options, El Mago developed each expression separately, giving the Sumatra its own identity within the series.

Crafted at the MGE Cigars Factory in Estelí, Nicaragua, The James Avenue Sumatra is a 6" x 54 box-pressed toro built around a Sumatra-seed wrapper of undisclosed origin. Beneath it is a Corojo binder, also from an undisclosed country, with Nicaraguan fillers completing the blend.

Medium in body, the Sumatra leans into the wrapper’s earthy, lightly sweet character with notes of cedar and dried fruit early on, followed by nuttiness through the midsection. A steady thread of spice from the Corojo binder helps tie the profile together, making this one of the more nuanced expressions in the James Avenue lineup.