They participated in the Habanos World Challenge - which tests the cigar knowledge and experience of contestant teams from all over the world and ended up crowned the champions of 2025 festival. Belize had teamed up with Curacao representing central America and the Caribbean. It's the first time Belize has participated and so we spoke to one of the winners this morning, Belize's very own Matthew Castillo and here's what he told us about the competition. Jomarie Lanza has this story.

It first began as a hobby, collecting Cuban Cigars, but now Mathew Castillo, the owner of Casa Cuba Cigar bar, along with his team have garnered the title of 2025 Habanos World Challenge Champions after competing in Cuba against 6 other regions. They presented judges with what they deemed as the perfect pairing, "What Cuban cigar is best paired with a glass of rum and chocolate?" Team Belize had joined forces with Alexei Sleur of Curacao and together they managed to best their competitors, including Cuba, the birthplace of premium cigars.

Matthew Castillo, 2025 Habanos World Challenge Champions
"So a big component of the competition is a pairing, what they call the Habanas moment. So you have to pair a specific cigar with either something to eat or something to drink. It could be non-alcoholic. Me being on the team it was very important for me to highlight Belize you know I'm very thankful for Belize this is where I'm from I love this country so we actually ended up using both products from the Belize, we used chocolate made in Belize and we used travelers Don Omario's rum the special reserve so this is what we used for our pairing in the competition. So on the world stage, this is what we presented. We served all the judges, the chocolate and the rum. We did some trials here in Belize when we were training to see what cigar, what rum, what chocolate, what paired best and this was the selection that we chose."

Belize represented Central America and the Caribbeans and Casillo said the competition was tight since they were going up against countries like Colombia, Spain and even Poland, but the judges were impressed by what Belize had brought to the table.

Matthew Castillo, Habanas World Challenge Champions
"Yeah you know it was a very tough competition you know you have to be very creative in the pairings. There is also a presentation part of it and the level of knowledge that these other teams had was also impressive because for this competition, you also have to know all the information about the history of tobacco all the different sizes of the cigars there are over 250 different sizes and you have to have the ability that when they give you a blind cigar you can tell what it is just by flavor and measurement so I was really impressed by the level of competition. I was a bit nervous in the beginning but you know we trained really hard. We had some really good guys helping us to train Francisco and Aaron really helped us out and we were training very hard in Belize and in Curacao so we were prepared. When we got into the competition, we were actually pleasantly surprised that we were able to master it and did quite a bit better than the other teams."

Dorian Pakeman, who assisted the team during its preparation, says that it took them some time and a couple of tests to really find that perfect blend of flavors that secured them a win. It may be a small market, but Belize has made its name known on the global stage.

Dorian Pakeman, Casa Cuba Cigar Bar, partner
"We've been working. I myself have been working in the cigar industry for about five years now, starting with selling little cigar samples, and the combination of that was opening a cigar bar, the first of its kind here on the mainland Belize in Belize city. I have always enjoyed cigar smoking and Matthew and I had the opportunity to compete and it was perfect. It was where we sell authentic Cuban cigars and he got the chance to participate in this competition and it was big not just for us but Belize on a whole it really put Belize on the map. The minute we went down in Cuba we became ambassadors on official ambassadors for Belize. There are a lot of questions. Who are these guys from Belize? Where is Belize you know, considering we are a very unique country in that we are geographically situated in Central America but culturally Caribbean so we got a lot of questions, but you know cigar smokers, especially Cuban cigar collectors. There are a bunch of high net worth individuals so we were able to network with those high net worth individuals and you know they are looking for opportunities all around the world and being able to talk to these people we were able to present them with some investment opportunities in Belize."

Belize's pairing presented to the judges was the Don Omario 18 year reserve rum, along with Xcacao Mayan Belize Chocolate, milk chocolate.