Kool Cigarette Types: A Guide

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Kool is a menthol cigarette brand introduced by Brown & Williamson in February 1933 and made today by ITG Brands in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was the first menthol brand to reach national distribution, and for most of its life every Kool was a menthol. That changed in 2021, when ITG added non-menthol styles, so the current US line is 15 styles: 10 menthol and 5 non-menthol, in king and 100 mm lengths, all in boxes except one soft pack. This guide lists them by the name on the pack and in the state directories, then covers the ownership history and the state menthol laws that decide where the menthol styles can be sold.

Last verified September 11, 2026 against the Oregon (July 2026), New Jersey (June 2025), North Dakota (June 2026), Arkansas (May 2025) and Utah (February 2025) state tobacco directories. A directory listing means the style is certified for sale in that state, not that every store carries it. Sources at the end.

The brand

The lineup

Menthol styles

Non-menthol styles

The count is 15 styles in Oregon and 14 in New Jersey, which does not list the soft pack separately. “Kool Green” is not a name that appears on the pack or in any directory; it is retailer shorthand for the green Menthol Filter Kings box. “Kool Milds,” “Kool Super Lights” and “Kool Lights” are retired descriptor names from before the June 22, 2010 federal ban on “light,” “low” and “mild.” The FDA’s 2018 review of ITG’s substantial-equivalence filings records “Kool Milds King Box” as the predecessor of “Kool Blue Box” and “Kool Filter Kings Box” as the predecessor of “Kool Box,” and lists Kool Blue at 83 mm with 29% filter ventilation and the green king at 20% ventilation. Kool XL, Kool Boost and Kool Smooth Fusion are past line extensions that are no longer in any state directory; their discontinuation dates are not documented in a primary source.

History

Brown & Williamson introduced Kool in February 1933, six years after Axton-Fisher’s Spud, the first menthol cigarette, and took it national that August. The penguin mascot was on the pack from the start and was named Willie in 1947. The early advertising was medical in tone: “Your throat will not get dry” (1933), “Throat comfort” (1934), “Rest your throat with Kools” (1938 to 1940) and “Switch from Hots to Kools” (1940). Those claims were legal then and are catalogued by Stanford’s tobacco-advertising archive as an example of menthol being sold as a throat remedy.

The product changed shape in the 1950s. A king size was tested in 1953 and went national in March 1954, and a filter was added in September 1956, the year after Reynolds launched filtered Salem. Kool’s share of the US market went from 2.9% in 1953 to 4.9% in 1965, 8.0% in 1970 and about 10% in the early 1970s; with the July 1972 launch of Kool Milds it became the best-selling menthol filter brand at 9% of all US cigarettes. The flip-open box arrived in November 1974, Super Longs (100s) in July 1977, Super Lights in 1977 and 1978, and Milds 100s in October 1979. Brown & Williamson’s own brand history records all of these dates.

Kool’s marketing to Black consumers is documented from the 1950s onward, in the Black press, in a 1984 Jet advertisement with Little Richard, and in the 2003 “House of Menthol” campaign.

Ownership moved twice. On July 30, 2004, Brown & Williamson’s US business combined with R.J. Reynolds to form Reynolds American, and Kool became a Reynolds brand. When Reynolds bought Lorillard, it sold Winston, Kool, Salem and Maverick, along with Lorillard’s Greensboro factory, to Imperial Tobacco Group’s US arm for about $7.1 billion; the sale closed June 12, 2015. The buyer, Lignum-2, LLC, became ITG Brands, which is why older directory entries still carry the “fka Lignum-2” note.

The non-menthol styles are the newest chapter. ITG added Kool Non-Menthol and Kool Blue Non-Menthol to the California directory on June 22, 2021, eighteen months before that state’s flavored-tobacco ban took effect, and they appeared on California shelves in January 2023 in the traditional brand colors. Both are on California’s Unflavored Tobacco List. Kool Luxe followed; no press release or dated primary source records its launch.

Menthol and the law

The 10 menthol Kool styles cannot be sold at ordinary retail in Massachusetts (flavored cigarettes restricted to licensed smoking bars since June 1, 2020) or California (SB 793, in effect December 21, 2022), and are covered by local menthol ordinances in a number of cities and counties elsewhere. The 5 non-menthol styles can be sold in those states; in California they must appear on the state’s Unflavored Tobacco List. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.

There is no federal menthol ban. The FDA proposed a product standard prohibiting menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes on May 4, 2022, sent the final rule to the White House for review in October 2023, and withdrew it on January 21, 2025. ITG Brands’ public position, stated in April 2021, is that there is “no clear scientific evidence to support a federal menthol and flavor ban.” The FDA’s position, in the withdrawn proposal, was that menthol makes cigarettes easier to start and harder to quit. Both are on the record; the rule is not.

FAQs

Who makes Kool cigarettes? ITG Brands, in Greensboro, North Carolina, owned by Imperial Brands. It has been an ITG brand since June 2015; before that Reynolds (2004 to 2015) and Brown & Williamson (1933 to 2004).

Are all Kool cigarettes menthol? No, not since 2021. Ten of the 15 current styles are menthol; Kool Non-Menthol, Kool Blue Non-Menthol and Kool Luxe are not.

What is the difference between Kool green and Kool blue? The green pack is Kool Menthol Filter Kings, the original style. The blue pack is Kool Menthol Blue, the former Kool Milds, which the FDA’s records list with 29% filter ventilation against 20% for the green king. Filter ventilation is a design measurement; the National Cancer Institute’s Monograph 13 found that machine-measured differences of this kind do not translate into lower exposure for the person smoking, which is why the “milds” name was banned.

Does Kool come in a soft pack? One style: Kool Menthol Filter Kings Soft, listed in Oregon and Utah. Everything else is a box.

Is Kool banned in California? The menthol styles are, at retail, since December 21, 2022. The non-menthol styles are legal there and are on the state’s Unflavored Tobacco List.

How does Kool compare with Newport? Both are menthol brands, made by different companies: Newport by R.J. Reynolds, Kool by ITG. The full Newport line is in the Newport guide. Menthol content by brand is covered in Which Cigarettes Have the Most Menthol?

What do they cost? Kool is a premium-tier brand; taxes, which are most of the price of any pack, are the same on every brand. The state-by-state breakdown is at How Much Does a Pack of Cigarettes Cost?

Sources

• Oregon Department of Justice, Tobacco Brand Directory, July 21, 2026; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Tobacco Directory, June 30, 2025; North Dakota Attorney General directory, June 30, 2026; Arkansas Attorney General directory, May 30, 2025; Utah State Fire Marshal fire-safe cigarette list, February 19, 2025
• ITG Brands, Kool brand page and About Us
• Brown & Williamson, KOOL Brand History (internal document, Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising); Stanford SRITA, Kool Your Throat
• Reynolds American Inc., Form 10-K for 2006 (July 30, 2004 combination), SEC EDGAR; Reynolds American Form 8-K, June 12, 2015
• FDA Center for Tobacco Products, Technical Project Lead Review, SE0006213 and SE0006214 (Kool Blue Box, Kool Box), October 16, 2018; FDA, Light, Low, Mild or Similar Descriptors
• California Attorney General, Notice of Addition, ITG Brands, June 22, 2021; Unflavored Tobacco List entry
• Federal Register, Tobacco Product Standard for Menthol in Cigarettes, May 4, 2022; Public Health Law Center, Proposed Menthol Rules Withdrawn, February 7, 2025; ITG Brands statement, Business Wire, April 29, 2021; Mass.gov, 2019 Tobacco Control Law
• Tobacco Insider, USA: Cigarette Brands, January 24, 2025, and USA: Brand of Smokes, August 12, 2026 (industry press)
• University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, A History of Marketing Menthol to Minorities