Martello’s Ortolan Heads to Stores

Martello Cigar Co.’s first cigar is shipping to stores today.

The Ortolan is a 6 x 50 toro, made at El Titán de Bronze. As with some other cigars made at the small Miami-based factory, it uses medio tiempo in the filler, a small leaf that grows at the top of a single-digit percentage of tobacco plants. Because of its positioning on the plant, the priming is said to be even richer than similar tobaccos from the ligero priming.

This is the first release for the company, which has been launched by Michael Martello Jr.

“I have always had a relationship with cigars,” said Martello Jr. in a press release last month. “As I began to learn more about tobacco and the care required to produce it, I found distinct parallels between cigarmaking and the structure, discipline, and respect I had learned in the kitchen. I never felt a dish belonged solely to the chef. There were so many people who cared for that product before it ever reached me. Tobacco feels the same.”

The cigar comes packaged in porcelain jars of 10 that feature a drawing of an ortolan a small bird, perhaps best known as a dish in French cuisine that is oftentimes consumed while a person uses a napkin to cover themselves while they remove the bones from the mouth.

An alternate way, depicted in a scene of the television show “Succession,” is to cover your whole head with a napkin,

El Titán de Bronze (Factory)
Martello Cigar Co.
Martello Cigar Co. Ortolan