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Page 1 of 2  Plus: Our Register & Win winner of the week!Los Angeles, February 6 – For 16 years, the folks at Two Guys Smoke Shop in New Hampshire have been awarding their “Cigar of the Year.” Although familiar brands like Camacho, Fonseca and Romeo y Julieta Vintage are on the list of winners, so are some brands that aren’t as well known. So it is with their winner for 2007, which Dave Garofalo and his team described as “outstanding” in a difficult-to-pick year. “The competition in 2007 was tough,” wrote Garofalo, “this was the best production year this decade so far and it was Cuvee that stood out among the best.” Cuvee? If you’re not familiar – and many are not – the Cuvee is a three-blend line from DomRey Cigars, the same folks who bring you Cusano. That would be Mike and Joe Chiusano, pictured on the left and right of Garofalo above. They designed Cuvee in conjunction with the legendary Hendrik Kelner at Tabadom in the Dominican Republic and originally introduced it in Europe. It finally made it to the U.S. in 2006 in the “Cuvee Blanc” and “Cuvee Rouge” styles. The Blanc has a Connecticut wrapper while the Rouge has a Dominican-grown wrapper and both use Dominican binders and Dominican and Honduran-grown leaves in the filler. The Blanc is medium-to-full in body and the Churchill size was the choice of the Two Guys tasters for their “Cigar of the Year” award. There are four sizes in all three Cuvee lines, including the imposing Salomon at 7 1/4 inches by 57 ring. The Churchill, Toro Gordo and Robusto are all quite reasonably priced at $6.95 to $7.95 each, not including local tobacco taxes, with the Salomon at $12.00 apiece (this size is presented upright in a special case of 50, tied in a single bunch with a silk ribbon!). These two styles of the Cuvee line were joined by a third blend, the Cuvee No. 151 late last year, which is made in Nicaragua with a Costa Rican-grown maduro wrapper. If you’re not familiar with it, the Cuvee is impressively smooth and like all brands made at Tabadom, has excellent construction and an easy draw. It’s another example of the maxim, “The best cigar you ever smoke may be the next one you try.” Hammer time: Lots of interesting stuff on auction this past week, including 25 store signs for the Diablo brand, offered at CigarAuctioneer.com. All 25 of the signs sold, most for between $25-26, but one bidder paid $31.26 for one. Interest in the 40 accompanying boxes of Diablo Caliente cigars (5 inches by 50-ring robustos) shows why the brand – an experiment aimed at 30-something smokers – didn’t make much of an impact. Only 26 sold and 20 of those sold for the opening bid price of $39.95 or for $39.96. The top bid was from a buyer who bought two boxes at $41.75 each. |
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Did you know?
“Cellophane sleeves on cigars were introduced into wide use only in the 1940s.
