• Fonseca Don Antero:
Manuel Quesada’s MATASA factory is well known for its mild-bodied and well-balanced Fonseca line, but Herklots had another idea. The result is the exclusive Don Antero series, called the most powerful cigars ever to come with the Fonseca name. Only four sizes are made: a Belicoso Fino (4 1/4-inch torpedo), a giant Black Prince (9 1/4 x 48), a Corona (6 1/2 x 44) and the Don Antero, a magnificent 6 3/4-inch by 48-ring perfecto. All use a powerful Honduran-grown Criollo 98 wrapper and are offered in boxes of 10, 20 or 50 depending on the shape at prices ranging from $5.75 to $10.00 each.

• La Aurora Choix Supreme:
This is a specially-made, corona-sized (about 5 1/2 inches by 42 ring) cigar made only for the New York Davidoff shops. It features a specially-prepared Cameroon wrapper over a Dominican Olor binder the Dominican-grown seco and ligero leaves. Unbanded, it’s a lot more expensive than the regular La Aurora line: a box of 50 goes for $337.50!

• La Garita Cigar Company:
This is a tiny brand created by blender Luis Juan Falto, working in conjunction with the La Aurora factory in the Dominican Republic. Each different size of cigar is a different blend, featuring Cameroon and Nicaraguan wrappers. This offering is so small than only the Columbus Circle store handles it and it is not sold online!

• The Super Selection:
This is a unique cigar developed at and made by the Davidoff factory specifically (and only) for the Davidoff stores in New York. There are four sizes in the line, all in tune with today’s smoker and quite full-bodied, featuring a Ecuadorian sun-grown or Ecuadorian-grown, Connecticut-seed wrapper and ranging in price from $165.00 to $217.50 for a box of 25.

All but the La Garita cigars can be ordered online. Does anyone else have so many exclusive lines from name brands in a single store group? Let us know so we can let others in on it!

California’s tobacco tax for health care dying?
Charles Janigian, the indefatigable head of the California Association of Retail Tobacconists, sent along a lengthy review of the California health-care funding debate now ongoing in which the Legislature proposed a $2-per-pack tax on cigarettes (with similar taxes on all other tobacco products, including cigars) to fund universal health insurance for all Californians.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is championing the concept, but is not interested in a tobacco tax increase as proposed by the Democrat-controlled Legislature. According to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, funding for the $14 billion program would come from employers and workers and a new tax on hospitals, which would benefit greatly under the plan. Tobacco is finally not being mentioned.

Even without the politically-unpopular idea of making a small portion of the population (smokers) pay for the plan, the program is being eyed warily by California voters who aren’t at all sure that taking on this additional fiscal responsibility is the right thing to do with the state already looking at a $10 billion budget deficit next year.

Everyone’s in favor of health care, but people hate paying for it themselves, let along paying for it for others.
~ Rich Perelman

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