Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars

A LITTLE OLDER, A LITTLE WISER

Plus: bad week for anti-tobacco activists

Los Angeles, November 12 – The father-son team of Julio and Christian Eiroa made Camacho Cigars a power in the industry. And with the introduction of the powerful Camacho Corojo blend in 2000, interest in the company’s products shot up like a rocket.

That was good and bad, as Christian Eiroa, in his late 20s, became a cigar star and the pressures of delivering millions of top-quality cigars to retailers across the country took their toll.

Now 35 years old, Eiroa sat down for a fascinating interview with Frank Seltzer in the new issue of Smokeshop, one of the two major trade publications in the cigar industry.

“I learned a big lesson with the Camacho Corojo,” Eiroa told Seltzer. “We came out with it and very soon knockoffs were everywhere. It was very hard to take when my friends started copying me.

“I have learned not to rush the cigars. Right now, there is a huge problem for us in keeping production up to meet demand. I learned a valuable lesson before and I guess that is part of maturity and why part of our campaign is ‘Maturity.’ In October 2004, we rushed out the Corojos before they were ready. It was a tough situation but it was all due to my inexperience. Back then (in 2004), I just wanted to fill the need. We had people calling and complaining that they wanted more cigars. If the customers wanted it, I figured we’d do it. I can’t say I should have known better because I didn’t. The cigars we shipped weren’t the best we could make. We were rushing to get them out. It is all part of the experience where you grow up, learn and mature. Those are mistakes you won’t make again.”

Eiroa acknowledged the error and has worked diligently to expand Camacho’s ability to grow better tobacco and blend better cigars. He’s also hired some talented staff to handle major aspects of the company. And he’s learning how to handle success, even when he doesn’t expect it. Take, for example, the trade’s reaction to the striking new packaging for the top Camacho lines, especially the three-size Diploma grouping of the Camacho Corojo line and the new Camacho Triple Maduro:

“So now we have the new packaging and we were expecting a 50% increase in demand and instead we got a 300% increase in demand. We are overwhelmed. There is no way I could have expected this kind of increase. If I could have predicted that, I would be playing the lottery. But this time, even with the backlog of orders, we will not ship the cigars until they are ready and we will not be rushed.

“People are enjoying our work, but we don’t lose sight of the customer. You always have to provide value. That is the only thing that secures somebody’s enjoyment.”

Smoking rates stalled nationally:
The anti-smoking forces in the U.S. suffered a bad shock last week with the 59-41 percent defeat of Oregon’s Measure 50, which would have imposed an additional 84 1/2-cent tax on cigarettes and another 30 percent tax on other tobacco products to fund health-care insurance for uninsured children in the state. More surprising news came from the Centers for Disease Control, which reported that for the first time since the Federal government has been keeping records, smoking rates have stalled and are not going down.

The CDC estimates that 20.8 percent of American adults are smokers, with about 45.3 million adults consuming cigarettes (the study did not include cigar or pipe smokers). Of this population, about 80.1 percent (36.3 million) smoked at least one cigarette a day.

The report, appearing in the CDC’s Morbidity and MortalityWeekly Report for November 9, noted that:

“The prevalence of cigarette smoking remained relatively unchanged during the early 1990s but gradually decreased from 1997 (24.7%) to 2004 (20.9%). This report indicates that the prevalence of current smoking among U.S. adults in 2006 (20.8%) was not significantly different from the prevalence in 2004 (20.9%), suggesting a stall in previous declines. This lack of a decrease in cigarette use during 2 years might be a result of several factors. Most notably, funding for comprehensive state programs for tobacco control and prevention decreased by 20.3% from 2002 to 2006, and tobacco-industry marketing expenditures nearly doubled from 1998 ($6.7 billion) to 2005 ($13.1 billion). In 2005, approximately 81% ($10.6 billion) of tobacco-industry marketing expenditures were related to discounting strategies (e.g., coupons, two-for-one offers, or promotional discounts for retailers or wholesalers) that reduce the impact of increases in the unit price of tobacco, which are effective in preventing initiation of smoking and increasing cessation.”

It’s worth noting that the CDC, which is generally quite careful about its language, states plainly that more than four-fifths of what cigarette companies spend is on discounts since advertising of almost every kind has been banned. That the smoking rates have not gone down significantly without the addition of continuous, heavy suppression efforts such as giant tax increases and anti-smoking ad campaigns by states tells you something about the inherent popularity of tobacco products.

The CDC said that of the current 45.3 million cigarette smokers, 44.2 percent (20 million) had tried to quit, meaning that 25.3 million didn’t try to quit, an even more revealing figure. But the figures also showed that of the 91 million U.S. adults who had smoked 100 or more cigarettes in their lifetimes, 50.2% (45.7 million) had quit.

From the Cubador:
Cuba is almost as famous for its rums as for its cigars and the Cuban Rum corporation introduced two new rums last week at the Havana International Trade Fair.

Cubai Rum is an aged spirit which is expected to be introduced slowly to specific markets, with a modest target of 10,000 cases to be produced next year. The second is called Palma Mulata Reserva Real, a 12-year-old rum that will be sold in six-bottle cases.
~ Rich Perelman

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