One of the World's Oldest Tobacconists Just Launched Its Most Ambitious Cigar in Decades
There are very few institutions in the luxury goods world that can genuinely claim a lineage stretching back to the eighteenth century and still be making news. James J. Fox, the storied cigar merchant anchored at 19 St. James's Street in London, is one of the rare exceptions. This week, the company debuted the James J. Fox Selección — a new Honduran cigar line whose packaging deliberately reaches back to the golden age of bespoke Cuban tobacco, and whose blend signals a deliberate pivot toward elegance over intensity.
For any serious cigar smoker, this is not a minor product announcement. It is a statement of intent from an institution that has been shaping tobacco culture in the English-speaking world since the American Revolution was still fresh news.
The Launch: London First, Dublin Follows
The James J. Fox Selección launched at the 19 St. James's Street store on Thursday, June 25th, and will be available to purchase thereafter from the St. James's or Selfridges locations. The line will then be introduced to Ireland on July 1st at an event in Dublin. That two-city rollout is itself a nod to the dual soul of the company — a business that operates simultaneously as a London institution and as Ireland's premier tobacconist, with deep roots in both cities.
The company plans to offer international shipping and distribution in the future, which means American enthusiasts currently looking to acquire the Selección will need some patience — but if this launch plays out the way the company's track record suggests, the wait will likely be worth it.
Nearly 240 Years of Tobacco History Behind One New Box
To understand why a cigar launch from James J. Fox carries the weight it does, you have to understand what this address on St. James's Street actually represents. The shop has been trading in fine tobacco and smokers' accessories from 19 St. James's Street for over 235 years, and its customers have included discriminating smokers from all walks of life — from commoners to kings, among them Sir Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, British and Foreign Royalty, the officer's mess of famous British regiments, and leading lights of stage, film, sport, television, radio, music, and literature.
The origins of the business itself trace an intricate Anglo-Irish arc. The tobacco business started with Robert Lewis, who began trading fine tobacco in St. James's Street in 1787. James J. Fox was formed in Dublin in 1881 and opened its first tobacco shop in London in 1947. Fox acquired the business of Robert Lewis in 1992, with both companies now trading as JJ Fox (St. James's) Ltd., in London and Dublin.
That merger is one of the most consequential moments in the modern history of premium tobacco retail. The merging of those two venerable brands resulted in the rechristening of the Robert Lewis store to James J. Fox, though only the name above the door changed — the spirit of the establishment remained intact. Today, both companies trade as JJ Fox (St. James's) Ltd and run the cigar departments of Harrods and Selfridges, in addition to selling large and small cigars online.
The Freddie Fox Legacy
The man most responsible for turning a single Dublin shop into a transatlantic tobacco empire was Frederic "Freddie" Fox, whose story reads more like a mid-century thriller than a business biography. Born in 1913, Freddie was the fourth of five children and the youngest of James Fox's three sons. He found himself in charge of the family business — a single cigar shop on Dublin's Grafton Street — after the untimely deaths of his two brothers. Stanley Fox was shot dead by armed thieves thought to be members of the IRA in 1926, while Ronald ("Biffy") was missing in action over the Dutch coast in 1942 during an RAF mine-laying mission. Freddie, not content with just one shop, took the business from strength to strength, establishing a successful import and wholesale business in Ireland alongside the world's first duty-free outlet, which expanded the retail cigar business into London.
He developed numerous brands including Punch Néctares, Bolívar Amado, Hoyo Royal Hunt, and La Corona Policromia, and established the Astor Tobacco Company. Those Cuban exclusives would become the spiritual ancestors of the new Selección line, and their packaging has now been explicitly revived as the design template for what the company is launching today.
A Museum Beneath the Floorboards
The St. James's Street flagship is not merely a shop — it functions as a living archive of tobacco history. In the basement, the Freddie Fox Museum houses a vast array of historic pieces and memorabilia, including the cigars and cigar cases owned by Sir Winston Churchill himself. The museum also holds the oldest box of Havana cigars still in existence — the first box to reach the United Kingdom in 1851 as part of the Great Exhibition. Among the museum's documents is a ledger recording purchases Oscar Wilde made with the shop between September 5th, 1892 and June 24th, 1893. The shop has received seven royal warrants since its opening in 1787, the first from Queen Victoria and the last from the late Queen Mother.
That lineage is not mere wallpaper. It's an argument for why the name James J. Fox on a box of cigars means something that newer brands simply cannot replicate. When the company reaches into its history to design new packaging, it has nearly two and a half centuries of authentic material to draw from.
What's Actually in the Box: The Selección Blend
The James J. Fox Selección is built as a follow-up to the Fox House Blend, but it charts a noticeably different course in terms of character and structure. Commercial manager Jimmy McGhee says that this cigar line is less full-bodied but more refined, thanks to a carefully considered blend of Honduran wrapper, Honduran binder, and a filler combination of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco that never gets too strong.
That profile is a deliberate design choice, not a concession. The premium cigar market has spent much of the last decade rewarding power over finesse — big ring gauges, dense fills, tobacco that announces itself aggressively. The Selección makes the opposite argument: that refinement and restraint are not compromises, but markers of genuine sophistication. It is, in the most fitting sense, a gentleman's smoke.
The Selección is a natural continuation of the Fox House Blend, with the aim of creating a cigar carrying a new blend and presentation while keeping the philosophy of flavor and commitment to quality. The Fox House Blend was originally unveiled in 2003, and the blend — now composed of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos — has been revised, as has the presentation.
Three Sizes, Three Classic Vitolas
The Selección is offered in exactly three sizes, each drawn from the classic canon of traditional vitola shapes. The line is offered in three sizes: Selección No. 1, which measures 4 inches by 50 ring gauge, priced at £25 (approximately $33); No. 4, at 5 5/8 inches by 46, priced at £29 (around $38.50); and Selección No. 7, at 5 1/2 inches by 54, priced at £35 (approximately $46.40).
The sizing nomenclature — No. 1, No. 4, No. 7 — is itself a callback to the old Cuban exclusive numbering systems that Fox used with houses like Partagás and El Rey del Mundo decades ago. These weren't arbitrary numbers; they were catalog designations from a pre-revolutionary era of tobacco commerce when top London tobacconists functioned as co-creators with the great Havana manufacturers, commissioning shapes and blends that existed nowhere else in the world. Reviving that numerical language is a quiet but deliberate act of heritage-claiming.
The Packaging: A Period-Piece Revival
If the blend is the substance of this release, the packaging is the argument. All formats come in 20-count boxes designed to resemble old Cuban packaging, particularly the collaborative Cuban releases made exclusively for James J. Fox in the past, such as the Punch Néctares or the Hoyo de Monterrey Royal Hunt.
Those older Fox exclusives — Cuban tobaccos rolled under prestigious Havana house names but configured to Fox's private specifications — were some of the most prized boxes in the mid-twentieth century cigar world. Collectors still seek them out. Reproducing the aesthetic language of that era for a new Honduran blend is a high-stakes design gambit, but it reads as earned rather than nostalgic when the house making the claim genuinely commissioned those original boxes.
The period-piece look was achieved by affixing traditional slide-lid boxes with a yellow ribbon drawn across the top row of cigars. The ribbon is attached onto the short side of the box with a dress stud. Adding to the effect is a warranty seal decorated with the facades of James J. Fox's two flagship stores — the one in London and the other in Dublin, which will be launching the Selección on the first of July.
Inspired by the original presentation of Cuban boxes, the Selección comes in 20-unit sliding-lid boxes adorned with a yellow ribbon running along the top row of cigars. Each box bears the inscription "Specially selected by James J. Fox London and Dublin." The boxes also feature a seal reminiscent of the Cuban guarantee seals that first appeared on Havana cigars in 1889.
McGhee put the design philosophy plainly: "The box design honors our tradition for developing bespoke lines in partnership with some of the most prestigious Cuban cigar houses." And in a final flourish that ties the entire project together, he added: "The historically evocative phrase, 'specially selected by James J. Fox London & Dublin' stamped on every box has never felt more appropriate or more well-earned."
Made in Honduras: The Danlí Factory and Hamlet Paredes
For a brand with such overtly British-Irish packaging, the cigars themselves are thoroughly New World in construction. The cigars are made in Honduras at the Danlí Cigar Factory and overseen by Hamlet Paredes, who also oversees Bond Roberts — a line made for the cigar auction platform of the same name, which is a business venture between Rob Ayala and Robert Fox, James J. Fox's managing director. These are, however, entirely separate cigar brands.
Danlí, in the El Paraíso department of Honduras, has long been one of Central America's most productive cigar-making regions, benefiting from fertile volcanic soil and a climate that rivals the best growing conditions in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. The presence of Paredes as production overseer brings with him both technical fluency and an understanding of what a premium-market British audience expects from a handmade cigar — consistency, burn quality, and a draw calibrated to slow, contemplative smoking rather than quick consumption.
The blend architecture — full Honduran on wrapper and binder, with a Honduran-Nicaraguan filler combination — is a smart hedge. Honduras contributes an earthiness and mild sweetness to the leaf, while Nicaraguan tobacco is well known for adding structure, a refined spice note, and complexity to a filler that might otherwise read as flat. The result, at least on paper, is a cigar that has enough backbone to smoke with something spirit-forward — a Scotch whisky or an aged rum — without overwhelming the palate or demanding that you clear your schedule for the next two hours.
What This Means for the Premium Cigar Market
The cigar industry, particularly at the luxury end, has been navigating a delicate tension for several years now. Cuban cigars remain the benchmark of prestige in European markets, while New World tobacco — particularly from Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic — has closed the quality gap substantially, often surpassing Havana-rolled cigars on consistency and value. The James J. Fox Selección sits at a meaningful intersection of those two conversations.
By using a Honduran blend in packaging that consciously evokes the great pre-embargo Cuban collaborations, Fox is making an argument that the best New World tobacco deserves the same ceremonial treatment that was once reserved exclusively for Havana leaf. The slide-lid box, the yellow ribbon, the guarantee seal modeled on those that appeared on Havana cigars from 1889 onward — these are not decorative choices. They are a philosophical position: that craft deserves ceremony regardless of origin.
There is also a straightforward commercial logic at play. After the launches, the James J. Fox Selección cigars will be available for purchase at either of the retail locations or online within the United Kingdom. Keeping the initial release exclusive to the UK and Ireland market creates genuine scarcity, which in the modern premium cigar market translates directly into desirability. The announcement of future international shipping will be watched closely by American distributors and importers who understand that a James J. Fox house blend — particularly one carrying the design language of its historic Cuban exclusives — has the kind of backstory that sells itself on both sides of the Atlantic.
The House Blend Trend in Premium Retail
James J. Fox is not operating in a vacuum with this move. Across the premium tobacco retail world, proprietors and established merchants have been developing house blends with increasing seriousness over the past decade — a trend that reflects a broader shift in how serious smokers relate to the shops they patronize. Rather than simply stocking shelves with manufacturers' brands, the most ambitious retailers are positioning themselves as co-creators, curating not just selection but origin.
What distinguishes the Fox Selección from most of those efforts is the weight of institutional credibility behind it. When a shop that has been making bespoke Cuban exclusives since before most American cigar brands existed launches a house blend, the heritage argument is genuine rather than manufactured. The name on the box carries nearly 240 years of continuous tobacco commerce. That is not a marketing claim. It is a verifiable fact, backed by a museum in the basement of the store, complete with Churchill's cigar cases and Wilde's shop ledger.
The St. James's Street Experience: Still the Benchmark
For any American traveling through London, the flagship store at 19 St. James's Street warrants an afternoon. James J. Fox is one of the few places in England where it is still permitted to smoke indoors — a special exemption was made when indoor smoking was banned in 2007 for shops that get at least half their sales from cigars and pipe tobacco. The shop has an indoor sampling lounge where you can sample your purchases while sitting comfortably on a leather sofa or armchairs, with complimentary coffee and water. They also offer cigar storage, valuation services, and vintage cigar purchasing.
Those interested in the history of the business and cigars can venture downstairs into the Freddie Fox Museum, which features fascinating exhibits including cigars owned by Churchill himself and the oldest box of Havana cigars still in existence. The chair used by Sir Winston Churchill while he was selecting his favorite cigars at the store is also on display. It is the kind of artifact that doesn't require explanation — you understand its significance the moment you see it.
The Dublin location, meanwhile, has been Ireland's premier tobacconist since 1881 and has built a reputation as a destination for premium handmade Cuban cigars, smoking pipes, and Irish whiskey. Located on Grafton Street — the retail heart of Dublin city centre — the store is easily accessible from many parts of the city. The July 1st Selección launch at the Dublin shop is being treated as a full event, which fits the Fox tradition of marking significant releases with the kind of ceremony the cigars themselves are meant to accompany.
The Bottom Line for Serious Smokers
The James J. Fox Selección is, on the surface, a three-SKU Honduran cigar line from a London tobacconist. But the surface is rarely where the interesting stuff lives. Strip away the history and the packaging and you still have a cigar built around a refined, medium-bodied New World blend, crafted at a respected Honduran factory, at price points that sit squarely in the premium-but-accessible range — under fifty dollars a stick, with a presentation that most handmade cigars twice the price cannot match.
Add back the history, and the release becomes something more: a deliberate act of institutional memory, a New World blend dressed in the full ceremony of the old Cuban tradition, launched from one of the very few addresses on earth that can credibly claim to have been doing exactly this kind of work for nearly two and a half centuries. The Selección No. 7, with its generous 54 ring gauge and classical proportions, will pair exceptionally well with a serious Scotch or a peated Irish whiskey — and for anyone who gets their hands on a box before international distribution kicks in, the provenance alone will make the smoke taste a little richer.
According to the company's records, James J. Fox's history as a tobacco trader goes as far back as 1787. The shop has been at the same St. James's Street address for centuries, serving everyone from commoners to kings, and it will now add one more chapter to that record with a cigar born in Honduras but dressed, unmistakably, in the spirit of old Havana.
