Latest Casdagli line is in memory of founder’s grandfather – a World War II hero and POW camp escape artist.
AN incredible wartime story is the foundation for a sensational new cigar creation from Casdagli Cigars.
Jeremy Casdagli’s grandfather is the inspiration behind the new Cypher series of cigars – a very small run of top class cigars made with ‘secret’ high end tobaccos which commemorate the extraordinary life of his grandfather, Major Alexis Casdagli.
The former POW was incarcerated after being captured on Crete during WWII and spent the next few years trying repeatedly to escape appalling conditions in various prisoner of war camps.
An expert embroiderer, one of his famous works commemorating his enforced stay has been exhibited in museums and galleries ever since – especially because it contained, in morse code, a defiant expletive at his captors, sewn into its border. The Nazis were never in on the joke, even though they inspected the wall art daily.
Cigar Journal will feature this extraordinary story in full detail in a forthcoming issue, but in the meantime, Jeremy Casdagli says the new lines – the Lorenz, Enigma and Colossus, named after the famous code breaking machines – are selling faster than he can make them.
Proceeds from every stick are being donated to the Red Cross, who helped keep his grandfather alive until he could return to the UK to continue his remarkable life story.