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| C.A.O. BRINGS LYNYRD SKYNYRD TO IPCPR |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: Costa Rican innovator creates new bunching method to eliminate uneven burn!Los Angeles, April 14 – The annual International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailer Association (IPCPR – formerly RTDA) convention and trade show is the American cigar industry’s central event. In addition to the seminars, there are plenty of parties. One of the biggest each year is thrown by C.A.O., now a unit of the Henri Wintermans cigar empire and this year’s bash in Las Vegas will be no exception. But C.A.O. has taken the event to a new level. That’s because the iconic Hall of Fame band Lynyrd Skynyrd will be playing at this year’s C.A.O. show at The Palm Casino Resort on the evening of July 14. “My father founded C.A.O. 40 years ago here in Nashville, Tennessee,” said C.A.O. President Tim Ozgener, “so it was a perfect fit to celebrate this year with Southern rock’s original bad boys, Lynyrd Skynyrd.” Added C.A.O. Chairman Gary Hyams, “We knew this year’s IPCPR event had to be on a much grander scale than any previous year. As such, we are proud to be partnering with Carlos Torano cigars and Café Creme in order to produce an event that truly will be of epic proportions.” It’s the first time in recent memory that such a high-profile, name band has performed at one of the IPCPR functions, although C.A.O. had Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee in the D.J.’s booth at its “Party Like a Rock Star” party in Las Vegas in 2006. In the last two years, in Las Vegas and Houston, C.A.O. has allowed up to 500 members of the public to also attend the previously-RTDA members-only event. No such plan has been announced for this year . . . yet. New cigar-rolling technique up for patent: All cigar smokers would be happy to see the end of uneven burning in cigars. John Vogel, already known as an innovator for his development of tobaccos from ancestral Cuban seeds, believes he has found a way. Vogel, the head of the Tabacos de la Cordillera farming and cigar production facility in Costa Rica, has filed for a patent for his proprietary method of bunching that he calls “Bulls-Eye Ligero” (illustrated above). “Bunching with Bull’s-Eye Ligero creates a cigar inside a cigar,” he says. “First, the worker makes a small bunch out of ligero leaves. He then wraps them in their own small binder, forming a ‘cigar’ that is then centered within the base filler leaves. “To bunch the base filler leaves in the entubado method, our worker doesn’t lay base filler leaves across the hand upon which he lays loose ligero leaves. That relatively loose bunching style often permits the ligero to shift off-center during bunching, binding and pressing. “Instead, our unitized ligero rests in a concentric array of base filler leaves that have been previously entubado (rolled into ‘soda straws’). The leaf tips are at the foot end of the tubes, the leaf bases at the head end. During manipulation and pressing, the ligero stays put in the Bull’s Eye of the bunch. You can see it as a darker, round spot on the foot, about half the diameter of the cigar. It’s assuring to the smoker to see visual evidence . . . the dark round spot on the foot . . . he knows he’ll get an even-burning cigar, with no problems or bad taste.” |
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Did you know?
“Although introduced by Robert Levin of Holt's, Ashton cigars are named for British pipemaker William Ashton Taylor.
